


Everybody's Fool

by Cluegirl



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: EWE, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-23
Updated: 2010-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:06:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 101,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter: Bruised veteran of too many heartbreaks; cynical, jaded drunkard; Wardwright, war hero, recluse, and part time matchmaker. Next target -- Severus Snape, who has a lot to learn about love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ill Met by Hangover

October 30th, 2001

The first thing Harry saw when he woke up, were the words "Never Again"

He blinked his sore eyes, but the words on his shoulder didn't go away, and neither did the sundered heart behind them, rendered in a red so angry that it seemed to throb. He'd dreamed of that red since he'd first seen it in the tattooist's shop window. He'd yearned for the colour of heart's blood and roses and fury and loss – for something to cut through the heartless silver fugue of self-pity and alcohol he'd spent the better part of a week building up around himself.

_This one. I want this one._

_Pfew, what a pong! You're arseholed, mate. Piss off out of it._

_No, you don't understand. I can pay. Please. I need this one._

_What you need's a shower, tosspot. I don't do drunks – if you wasn't too pissed to read the bloody sign, you'd know that. Go on down the lane, and Old Bill might give ye a nice spot of tea and a cot for the night._

_No, damn it-_

_Oi! Theo, Dick, show this tit the door!_

He went back the next day, showered and shaven and presentable, if more than a little hungover. The red was still the same, even in the wan sunlight of what passed for spring in London; powerful, resolute, absolutely certain. Everything he needed.

He went in, asked politely, paid three times the listed price in advance, and then stripped off his shirt to watch in rapt attention as that angry red limned his shoulder with a broken heart that stung not half so much as the real one did. It was a _clean_ hurt, and after the sloppy, weltering morass of betrayal and disgust, Harry'd been crawling through since the end of the trial, it felt like flying head on into a bracing, icy wind.

And now, waking up alone in a bed that was too big for one, with the sun stabbing through his dusty bedroom curtains to stroke the plane of his shoulder with light, and turn the sigil to bronze and velvet… now in the cold, hungover light of the actual end, that red changed the words from a bitter denial, into a beautiful thing. The only beautiful thing he'd ever trust again.

Thoughtfully, Harry flexed his shoulder, and the message gave an emphatic jump, and a painful throb. _Never Again,_ it said.

"Damn straight," Harry agreed, rubbed a thumb over the scarlet ache, and shivered. No sooner had the words left his lips than the bedroom echoed with a sparkle and ping, and a squeaky voice cut through Harry's meditative mood like a particularly perky guillotine.

"Mister Harry Potter is awake at last!" Dobby bounced into view, laden breakfast tray balanced precariously on his head.

"Argh," said Harry, and reached for a pillow to hide under. "Dobby, I don't want breakfast. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, Dobby has been waiting and waiting, and has kept Mister Harry Potter's breakfast hot, even though it is nearly tea time," the tangled blankets slithered around Harry's body, smoothing at the house elf's finger-snap, and a moment later, Harry felt the tray settle beside him. "The Headmistress sends Dobby to be sure Mister Harry Potter remembers he is to go to London today and to buy the baits for the Manticore traps, and that he should also be getting the grunyip bulbs and toadflax for Professor Sprout, and the new feathers for Professor Flitwick because the first years burned up all theirs, and would he please to be stopping by Silenus' Cellars while he is in Diagon Alley, for a bottle of -"

"Dobby…" Tea gurgled from the pot, and the house elf chattered on, oblivious.

"- Auld Wallace, and Dobby says to the Headmistress 'Oh yes, Dobby will be sure that Mister Harry Potter does not forget." A crinkle of paper, followed by a cheery clanking of spoon to china. "Dobby has made a list, see? And Dobby knows that Mister Harry Potter has been sad and has had drinking, and so Dobby has brought Pepper Up, and tea, and –"

"Dobby," the spoon chimed one too many times, and Harry snatched it from the house elf's hand. "Thank you," Harry said hastily as Dobby's eyes went wide and his ears drooped low. He took the teacup in one hand, and scrubbed at his face with the other. "I'm fine, Dobby. Just… leave the note, and you can go tell McGonagall. I'm just fine."

"But…" He felt a tentative touch on his elbow, "But you is _not_ fine, Mister Harry Potter. You is leaking your blood."

And so he was – hardly a smear, seeping through the lines of ink like sweat. He wiped it away with a corner of the sheet, and took a gulp of his too-hot tea. "It's nothing, Dobby. You can tell McGonagall I'll get her manticore problem sorted out today." He didn't look at the food on the tray -- he knew his stomach wouldn't accept any of it after he'd spent nearly a week trying to strip the lining with firewhiskey.

"But if Harry Potter is hurt," Dobby pattered after as Harry strode naked through the cottage to the round bathroom where Hagrid's pumpkin patch had once been. "then he should not be going-"

"It isn't a wound, Dobby," Harry interrupted, filling and heating the sunken stone bath with a flick of his wand and spell so familiar he hardly remembered to think the words anymore, "It's a…"

_Never Again._ The words blazed backward from his mirror, and Harry took a shaky breath as his reflection stared curiously and poked at the mark.

"It's a spell." He crouched down, breaking the line of sight, and allowing the elf to peer closely. "To keep me safe. I had it done last night. Like it?"

"Oh yes, Mister Harry Potter, but…" Dobby looked up, earnest and confused, bony fingers hovering over the stained shoulder as though afraid the red would burn, "what is it meaning, to say 'never again'?"

And having no answer which a house elf might understand, Harry only shrugged and turned to step into his bath. "It means lots of different things."

~*~

One of those things, it so happened, caught up with Harry just as he was coming out of Tocksin and Draught's. He had a bag of stunned rats in one fist, a flask of flesh-eating slug poison in the other, and Flitwick's damned feathers in a packet squashed under his arm, and so his wand was quite out of convenient reach.

He saw her coming, of course -- even two years after his defeat of Voldemort, Harry was rarely less than ferociously attentive to his surroundings when he was forced to go out in public. But he couldn't have missed that froth of bushy brown hair atop that purposeful stride that took the cobbles of Diagon Alley by storm, even if he'd been blind drunk. Harry cursed quietly, leaning back into the shadows of Knockturn and juggling his packages in search of his wand, and a quick disapparation before she spotted-

"Harry?" He grit his teeth, and turned to face her as she surged through the crowd. "Harry, good God, it _is_ you!"

He stepped back from her outstretched arms as she came close, stilling her rush with a single, curt nod. "Hello, Hermione." He kept his tone just on the near side of chilly, hoping that maybe _this_ time, she'd have better things to do than-

"So… how've you been then," she launched into the smalltalk anyway.

"Fine."

She hesitated only a moment, her brows knitting, then she pushed on gamely. "Still up at the school these days? I heard Draco's considering the new Defense Against the Dark Arts position now that he's been acquitted."

Harry managed somehow not to flinch at the sound of Draco's name, and the still-painful memory it elicited -- Draco's face as last Harry had seen it, lips swollen and flushed, eyes bright with scorn and heavy-lidded with satiation as a dark-skinned arm twined around his naked shoulders --

_You know what I love about you, Potter? You've been getting fucked over for years now, but you're still such a bloody virgin, you manage to be surprised every time it happens!_

_Shut up, Draco. Just shut up and get out._

_It's true! And you know what else, oh my Champion? I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing the look on your face when you realize you're getting fucked yet again!_

Harry took a deep breath, and found his wand in his hand. "I think Malfoy's changed his mind about that," he managed, voice steady, steady, steady. "I need to get back now."

Hermione caught his arm, barely an inch from the new tattoo, which gave a warning throb. _Never Again._ "Oh, Harry please no," Hermione cried, "You can't go yet -- it's been so long since I've seen you, and it's just now coming on tea time. Surely Professor McGonagall can spare you for just a little while longer."

"Hermione," he warned, uncomfortably aware of the inquisitive stares she was beginning to draw. Maybe it would be better to let her drag him away. She'd make a scene if he didn't, and it was hard enough for him to go about without people staring-

"Oh Harry, come on! Ron's waiting for me down at the Leaky Cauldron, and I just know he'd be thrilled to see you-"

_Never Again._ Harry yanked his arm away. "No."

"Harry," her tone turned scolding; hands on hips, mouth held prim and tight with disapproval, and he'd had enough.

"Hermione. No. I'm not having tea with you, and I'm sure as fuck not having tea with Ronald-bloody-Weasley, so you might as well just piss off out of my bloody way." He shouldered the bag of rats, fully prepared to shove her aside if she didn't.

Hermione had always had a gift for sensing it when she'd pushed him too far. She stepped out of his way, but fell into step beside him as Harry began pushing through the crowd that had gathered to pretend they weren't eavesdropping. "Harry, when are you going to give up this childish bloody grudge," she asked. Even her heels clicked disapprovingly as she matched his pace down the sidewalk. "It's been nearly a year now, and-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, are the consequences of your decisions uncomfortable for you, Mrs. Weasley?" Harry gritted. People were openly watching them now, and he was rapidly ceasing to care.

"_My_ decisions!"

"And just to clarify," he cut her off, rounding the corner at Eyelop's Owlery at full stride, "that little matter of when -- or _whether_ \-- I forgive you or your husband for using me like a bloody trampoline is up to me, _not_ you!"

She caught his arm again, and this time her fingers dug hard as she dragged him back around to face her. "We never used you, Harry! Never! And it's not like you were completely inno-"

"Shut up." The pain in his shoulder; clean, bright red, and sharp as glass, made it easy to finally say. "Ron used me to make you jealous, and you used me to make him finally propose to you. He may have slept with me, but you both fucked me pretty well as fuckings go."

"He didn't," Hermione lowered her voice, stepping close with a nervous glance around the street, "Ron didn't use you. He just didn't know for sure whether or not he was really… you know…"

"What, gay," Harry laughed at her horrified expression, and refused to be hushed. "A shirt-lifter? A pouf? A faggot?" He tugged his arm away with a savage yank, and the flash of pain only fuelled his rage. "You tell yourself whatever you like, Hermione, but the only one who didn't know exactly what -- and who -- Ron Weasley wanted all along, was me. I thought that all those times he came to me had meant something. Something more than 'Hermione's narked at me again', or 'uh oh, is someone in danger of becoming more important to Harry', that is."

"He never-"

"Every time, for damn near two years, Hermione. Every lover I started to care for, Ron drove them away. Until he finally dumped me for you." She jumped a little as he poked her roughly in the shoulder. "So you'll have to forgive me if I'm still a little humiliated about being played for a chump."

"Oh, Harry," she breathed, eyes bright and lip not quite steady, "you're so very wrong about-"

"And now that you've dredged up all these wonderful memories," he cut her off with a sneer, "I really _do_ have to get back to Hogwarts now. Goodbye, Hermione."

"Harry, wait," she called after him, her voice thick and desperate, and he hated himself for pausing, but did it all the same. "Please. Please don't be angry. I don't want to fight with you, it's just… I wanted to tell you something. Something important. I hadn't told Ron yet, because I wasn't sure, but I'd meant to tell him today, and…" Harry closed his eyes, feeling sick and cold. "But now, I'm not sure I should say-"

"You shouldn't," he said, wrapping his own fingers around his shoulder, where blood was already beginning to make his sleeve tacky. The flash of pain squared his shoulders, straightened his spine. "It's none of my business." And with that, he walked away.

"Harry, please wait!" Her voice was thick and shaky, and he had no trouble imagining the tears escaping her eyes. "Please! We wanted you to be the Godfa-"

He disapparated, and even to him, the crack sounded rather like a slamming door.

~*~

Harry was halfway to the Hog's Head before he caught himself. "No," he said, stopping dead in the street just by the fountain. "Not today. Not again."

_Never Again._ his arm answered with a twinge.

Getting drunk wouldn't take away the sick, cold feeling in his gut. He'd tried for three days straight after catching Draco with Zabini together, and had ended up with a hangover and a tattoo, but no surcease from the pain. None at all. Drinking wouldn't help him forget anything except what he was actually _supposed_ to be doing with his day.

"Baiting manticore traps," Harry sighed, sitting on the fountain's lip, "and buying the Headmistress her favorite bloody -- aww hell." He'd forgot the Auld Wallace. And while he could go back to Diagon Alley for it, he didn't fancy his chances of getting in and out again without encountering another dose of the Weasley family felicity. Not with the Leaky Cauldron's big bay window pointing straight at Silenus' courtyard. Not with Hermione making her Important Announcement to her adoring husband right about now… Harry cursed, and considered his options.

He couldn't go to the Three Broomsticks for it -- Zach would be on shift at the bar now, and in the mood Harry found himself in, he just knew he couldn't put up with another round of remorseful sheep's eyes from the man. Aberforth carried Auld Wallace at the Hog's Head though. He'd pay a mark-up, sure, but Harry was willing to pitch his own money in for the chance to avoid… "Fuck." Harry shook his head, remembering; Zabini hired his rooms above the Hog's Head. And now that Draco Malfoy had neither rich father nor rich boyfriend's money to spend like water, the chances that he and Zabini would be draping about the Hog's Head on a Friday afternoon were pretty damn-

"Oh, can it be Harry Potter?" Harry grimaced, and wondered if he could get away, but a second, identically chirpy voice dashed his hopes.

"I think it can, Brother, I think it can," said Ernest Scrivenshaft, bustling to a stop by Harry's left elbow, and beaming at his brother Franklin, who brought up the other side. "Only what _can_ be the reason for such a weary seat, eh now, Mr. Potter?"

"Seat? What? Oh -- oh, it's nothing, really," Harry sat up straight, and located his best smile, but Franklin was already fetching out a hip flask. "I was just resting my feet. Been running errands down Knock -- er Diagon Alley all day. Having a bit of a sit-down before finishing up. Been a long day…"

"Long day, I daresay," Ernest grinned and gave Harry a wink, "After all your merrymaking of late, I should think so! Not that I can blame you, after your young man's trial came out so well, and Brother and I did note how worried you were about it all,"

"Touchingly worried indeed, Brother," Franklin agreed, transfiguring a loose brick into a crystal tumbler and sloshing in a generous dram of their vicious scarlet homebrew, "As anyone would be. You'll give him our compliments, won't you?" And he pushed the cup at Harry with a grin.

_Never Again._

"He's…" Harry swallowed, and tried again, pretending he couldn't see the liquor. "I don't see him much these days. I suppose you could find him down the Hog's Head though."

"You suppose?" asked Franklin. "You mean to say-"

"That's right."

"Oh dear," said Ernest.

Harry shouldered his burdens and stood. "Sorry, Sirs, I can't have that drink with you. The Headmistress is expecting me back-"

"Oh, but Mr. Potter, surely it can't be so," Ernest cried, catching at Harry's elbow, "You see, Mr. Malfoy was in our shop only yesterday."

"Made quite a generous purchase, in fact."

"Yes, yes. His mother's birthday, he said. And he …"

"He told you I'd settle his bill, didn't he?" Harry managed not to grind out the words, but the two brothers looked abashed all the same. And for a moment, he almost did it. It wasn't their fault Draco was a lying bastard, after all, and they didn't deserve to be stiffed for their wares because he'd abused Harry's good credit. It was on the tip of Harry's tongue to tell them to send the bill to his Gringotts account, when his tattoo gave a sudden, fierce throb.

"I'm very sorry, Messirs," Harry found himself saying through gritted teeth, "I believe the man you'll want to talk to about that is Blaise Zabini. He's paying Draco Malfoy's bills now, and I think you'll find him at the Hog's Head as well."

"Oh…"

"But Mr. Potter-"

"And once you've got your money out of him, " Harry went on, "I wonder if you'd mind telling the other merchants around the village that Mr. Potter doesn't want to hear about Mr. Malfoy's money needs anymore? Thank you." And he stormed away.

But the Scrivenshaft brothers, unfortunately, were only a foreshadowing. All of Hogsmeade seemed bound to put its fingers right into Harry's sorest bruises that afternoon, starting with Davis Winthrop down at the Owl post, who stopped Harry to gossip about the Ballycastle Bats' chances for the world cup.

"Good as any year, I suppose."

"They winna be so good as if tha'rt still flyin' Seeker though, Harry," Davis replied, then shook his head as Harry gave a half-hearted shrug. "Now then, none o tha modesty, Harry Potter. Tha'rt the handiest Seeker in th' League since auld Hawke, back in '65, and Our Man Wood full well knew't. Come on then, tell us why tha skived?"

_Oh, Wood knew all about what a good Seeker I was,_ Harry thought sourly, _even when we were dating, that's all he bloody well cared about._

But aloud, he only said "Guess my heart wasn't in it." And when Davis gave him a scandalized look, Harry took up his post and turned for the door, saying, "Not everyone can play Quidditch all their lives, Davis."

Then just down the road, as Harry was passing Madam Puddifoot's tea room, Lavender Brown just had to come bolting out from behind her tea-leaf reading table. She actually chased Harry down two doors, just to tell him that Susan Bones had asked her for a reading about him just last week.

"Oh good God, " Harry couldn't keep from saying. Then, feeling a little sorry for Lavender's hurt expression, he sighed, and let her drag him a little closer to the tea shoppe. "Well, what did you tell her?"

"Client confidentiality, Mr. Potter, " she sniffed, then tipped him a wink. "Just thought it was fair warning to say that if she has her way about it, Miss Bones will have you good and snaffled before the month is out."

"Bones doesn't want a boyfriend, Lavender," Harry replied with a nod at the flier pasted to the teashop wall. Susan Bones' picture peered back at them, sober and confident beneath the list of her qualifications for Village Council. "She wants a running mate. I learned that the first time I dated her."

"Well, she does come from a Wizengamot family, doesn't she?" Lavender mused. "And you are the biggest hero in the Wizarding World since Dumbledore, you know. Why, there's nothing you couldn't do if you turned your hand to the Ministry. Let me have a look at your palm-"

Harry put both hands behind him and backed away. "Not for me, Brown. I've had enough of politics and prophecies for one lifetime."

"Oh, but Harry, _think_ how much more popular you'd be than-"

"Heard it," he said. "And no, I'm not interested in being someone's hand puppet. Not again. Look, there's Parkinson," he pointed through the shop window, to where the brunette waited, pale and sad, beside Lavender's table. "Why don't you go and tell her that Draco Malfoy's back in the market for a rich bride?"

"He is?" The divinatrix' face broke into an avaricious grin as she forgot all about Harry's prospects for a political career. "Brilliant! Thanks, Harry!" And luckily, she turned away before she could see his look of utter disgust.

By the time Harry made it to Tunworthy's Spirits and Bookmakers, he was really in a horrible mood, with a scowl so fierce and forbidding that Mabel Tunworthy didn't have the nerve to triple the label price of the Auld Wallace like she usually did when rich toffs came in.

For himself, Harry was simply relieved to find the place had even heard of the liquor. Their having an unopened bottle on hand was simply miles beyond what he'd hoped for, and he would have paid every galleon he had for the ability to take the damned thing and retreat to the privacy of his own cottage again. He didn't blink at the price, which was higher than even Aberforth would have asked, and was busily counting out his galleons when the door behind him opened with a brassy, off-key jingle.

"Well, well. If it isn't our local… Celebrity."

Harry froze, eyes closed in frantic denial as the very last voice he wanted to hear in the entire world curled over his ears. No. It couldn't be. Why the hell would _he_ be-

"You have led me quite the chase today, Mr. Potter," Snape went on, leaning on the grimy bar, so close that Harry could smell the funk of potions in his robes, "Though that might have been my own fault. I might have known I could spare myself the bother of trying to find you, by simply beginning my search in the lowest, most repulsive establishment that Hogsmeade has to offer the accomplished drunkard."

"Oi, you bloody traitor!" said Mrs. Tunworthy, while Harry ground his teeth and finished counting out the money. "You're welcome to piss off out of it if you're too good for the likes of Mr. Potter and me!"

"So then, Mr. Potter," Snape ignored the woman's bluster and picked up the bottle of Auld Wallace in one long-fingered hand. "I take it that you'll be leaving the manticore problem to _me_ yet again while you make the acquaintance of your newest dose of liquid comfort?"

"Piss off, Snape," Harry said, snatching the bottle out of his hand. "It just so happens, I _am_ doing my job. McGonagall asked me for this, and the shop in Diagon Alley didn't have any."

"How convenient," Snape replied with a smirk. "And, given your state of profound inebriation since last weekend, how unlikely."

"That's none of your business," Harry shot him a glare and turned for the door. "But I've picked up the manticore baits and the poison, and I'm setting them out in the Forest as soon as I drop the rest of these parcels off at the school. So you can just go crawl back into your dungeon and leave the dangerous part of the job to me now. As usual." He hoped the door's jangle would put a stop to the conversation, but of course it didn't.

"You went to Knockturn today, you wretched boy?" Snape demanded, storming out after him, "Why the devil didn't you get those mummified lethifolds I ordered from Borgin and Burkes while you were there?"

"Because I'm not your fucking house elf, Snape," Harry rounded on the taller man with something approaching a sense of relief. Because here, at last, he didn't have to bite back the rage he'd been choking on since Hermione had caught his arm. Because Snape, he knew, could bloody well take it. "If you want your potions supplies, you can bloody well crawl out of your spider hole for once and get them yourself! It's not like you've got classes to teach anymore-"

"No," Snape cut him off with a sneer, but the glitter of his black eyes hinted that he was just as ready for a good scrap as Harry. "I've _research_ to do, not to mention the Castle wards to maintain -- a job with which you, I might add, are meant to be assisting, rather than stress-testing your liver for days on end every time you feel sorry for yourself!"

"Look, you tosser," Harry snarled, beyond caring who might be listening, "if the Headmistress had any problem with my work, she'd bloody well tell me so!"

Snape barked a laugh. "If you believe that you're even more of an idiot than I'd supposed, Potter. You and I are at Hogwarts now because Minerva McGonagall knows we've nowhere else to go." Harry, red faced and furious, couldn't deny it, and Snape didn't give him the chance to try. "And furthermore, this so-called occupation of wardsmithing is nothing more than make-work she's concocted to excuse the presence of two known murderers around her students." And yes, that word still made Harry's vision go a little red, even as it made his stomach twist in remembered self-horror. From the vicious smirk on Snape's face, he knew it too, the bastard.

"She'd still-"

"She would not take her precious Gryffindor golden boy to task unless manticores were mating on the Quidditch pitch, and _you know it!_" Harry, hands full, gave back a step from the sharp poke to his chest. He really wanted to slap that finger away instead, but wasn't quite angry enough to drop all his parcels and take a swing yet.

"Then she can hardly mind her pet black sheep taking some time to run his OWN goddamned errands, can she Snape," he leaned up, nose to hooked nose to shout, and oh, didn't it feel _good!_ "Oh, but wait, I forgot -- you don't like to show your face in public, do you? Makes you uncomfortable when people stare at you and whisper about what you did -- who you _killed_ during the War, doesn't it?" Snape's glower was just this side of murderous, and Harry rejoiced in it. "Well here's an exclusive for you, Snape: They do the same with me, and I hate it just as much. And given that I also hate _you,_ I don't consider it my bloody duty to spare you a little embarrassment when you can't even be bothered to ask like any normal person would do!"

"Well," Snape looked like he would explode for a second or two, but then he changed tack visibly, folding his arms across his narrow breast with a sneer, "perhaps you will allow me to spare _you_ a little embarrassment before you crawl into that bottle for the day, Mr. Potter: You and I are meant to referee the Quidditch game tomorrow morning, if you'll bother to remember."

"I thought Hooch was-"

"Madam Hooch and her avian flu are still in quarantine, Potter." Snape examined his nails smugly. "Now, I've no delusions of your showing up sober enough to see a foul play without a guide dog and a map, however you _might_ consider remaining sober enough to sit a broom. Assuming you plan to show up at all, that is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry demanded.

"Merely referencing your-"

"I was AT that game," Harry slung his bag onto the grassy verge, hardly heeding the clink of the glass bottles inside it. "It was YOU who didn't bother to tell me I was meant to be refereeing! _And_ you're the one who can't see any foul made by a player who happens to be wearing green, so I don't see where you get off-"

A chuckle sounded from farther up the street -- so achingly familiar, it speared straight through the heart of Harry's building rant. Harry had barely a second to try and steel himself, then Draco Malfoy sauntered into his view, draped across Blaise Zabini in an elegant sprawl. He remembered how that wiry arm felt spanning his shoulders, remembered the warmth of those ribs pressing into his own, and the smell of Draco's hair when he'd lean in and whisper such things…

"Potter," Snape's voice shook him back to the present, though it failed to dislodge the twist of pain lodged in Harry's throat. "If you are inferring that I favour Slytherin, then I should bloody well hope-"

But it was no good. The snide words were only burring in Harry's ears as the two, pale and dark and equally elegant in their cruelty, shared a glance, a whisper… and then a deeply sinuous kiss. Right there in the street. So close, that Harry could all but smell that damned cologne Draco had asked him for before the final hearing.

_ I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing the look on your face when you realize-_

"Potter."

_Never Again._

"Potter!" Snape's fingers dug like iron into Harry's arm and gave him a rough shake. Just enough for Harry to realize that his wand was clenched in his fingers and dripping crimson sparks onto the cobbles at his feet. Snape's eyes were sharply wary, as he stared down at Harry, and beyond his shoulder… Beyond his shoulder, Draco and Zabini writhed obscenely against the lamppost, as if trying to crawl into each other's clothes. "I ought, I suppose," Snape's voice droned in Harry's ear, "to know better than to hope you'd have learned to _pay attention_ when someone is speaking to you, but-"

"No," Harry said. The corner of Draco's mouth dimpled where he was hiding a smirk. When he tilted his head, Harry could hear the wet sound his tongue made, and see the glint of it slithering in Zabini's mouth.

"I beg your-"

Harry yanked his arm loose, eyes fixed on the pair by the lamppost. "Never. Again," he said. To Snape. To Draco. To the village full of gossips around him. To the wand in his hand, and the bottle at his feet.

He took a deep breath. Then he turned his back on them all, and started walking.


	2. How You Remind Me

~* August 3rd, 1998 *~

_"Mr. Potter, will you please recount for the court what you witnessed on top of the Astronomy Tower on the night of June Sixth?"_

_"No, I will not."_

_"I beg your pardon, Mr. Potter? May I remind you of the oath you swore before this Court of the Wizengamot, to-"_

_"To convey the Truth as I know it to be. I remember. And telling you what I saw that night wouldn't be doing that."_

_"Harry! What are you doing?"_

_"Mr. Potter, what the devil-"_

_"Harry, you have to-"_

_"What are you playing at, Potter?"_

_"Order in the Gallery! Order, I say, or I shall have this room cleared! And, Auror Shacklebolt, I shall ask you to renew the accused's silencing spell if he cannot hold his tongue! Now, Mr. Potter. Please answer the question."_

_"What I saw that night isn't really what happened. I thought it was pretty clear at the time, but… but that's just what Professor Dumbledore intended. When they read his will and they gave me his pensieve, I understood what really went on that night. Dumbledore knew he was dying all that last year. Since the June before, he'd known he was operating on borrowed time. He'd made Snape swear an unbreakable oath. Dumbledore made him swear that when the time came, when it looked as though the curse on Voldemort's ring would finally win, Snape would kill him rather than let him become an Inferi. And he made Snape swear that he would use Dumbledore's death to cement his position in Voldemort's good graces, so he could be in place to strike when the moment came. I saw him make that oath in Dumbledore's pensieve. And I saw him keep that oath on top of the Astronomy Tower that night."_

_"Order, I say! You will all be silent! This is your final warning!_

_"And since I swore to tell the Truth as I know it, I also have to tell the Court that it was Snape who distracted Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy when they caught me with the last of the -- that is, when they found me near Voldemort's stronghold. Snape knew I was there, and what I was looking for. He attacked them both, and if he hadn't, then I … wouldn't be here today. And I daresay neither would many of you!"_

_"What are you trying to say, exactly, Mr. Potter? That we have this Death Eater, who has admitted to having murdered Albus Dumbledore, and who was witnessed doing so, to thank for your victory over the You Know Who? I suppose you'll want us all to believe that your legendary rivalry was nothing more than a clever ruse to defer You Know Who's suspicion?"_

_"No, that part was real. I did hate him. Still do, in fact. He's spent the last eight years doing everything he could think of to make me hate him -- insulting me, my friends, my family, belittling my efforts, my hopes, trying to take away everything I could possibly love. He worked hard to be sure I'd hate him, and far be it from me to disappoint him. I do hate him. But that doesn't make him a traitor, and it doesn't make him guilty of murder."_

_"But Mr. Potter-"_

_"He was no traitor, because he was doing precisely what Dumbledore asked him to do, and without him, Voldemort would now command the Ministry! And then if you weren't in Voldemort's pocket, your head would be on its gates, and you know it's true, Minister!"_

_"And it is your opinion then Mr. Potter, that the Death Eater who killed Albus Dumbledore, who passed sensitive information to Voldemort, attacked innocent people, and who abandoned the Order of the Phoenix in the middle of wartime should walk free and un-punished among us? Is that how you would see Justice served?"_

_"Well, I suppose that all depends."_

_"Depends, Mr. Potter? Upon what, if you please."_

_"That depends on whether this Court is actually interested in serving Justice, or is only out to get Revenge."_

_"I beg your-"_

_"Justice is ensuring the balance -- protecting the weak from the evil. Snape isn't evil, and his 'crimes' weren't against the weak, and no punishment this court could put to him would ever hurt him as much as living with his own guilt. Revenge, though -- that's just about you making yourself feel better, no matter what's really 'right'. Voldemort was good at revenge. I'd hope this Wizengamot would make a different choice. And that's all I have to say today. Excuse me."_

_"Order! Come to order, I say! Mr. Potter! Mr. Potter, you are not dismissed! Order now! Aurors, clear the Gallery at once! Mr. Potter, return to the bench at once!"_

~* October 30th, 2001 *~

Severus watched Potter stalk away down the street, unable to decide between disgust at the brat's continued failure to conceal his weaknesses, and bemusement at the cause of Potter's discomfiture.

_You'll swear nothing's wrong even when your nose is broken and your face is all over blood, but you can't watch one snake kiss another without turning green?_ he mused, continuing to watch that rigid back and scarlet neck as the pair behind him burst into guffaws.

"Merlin, did you see his face?" Malfoy's voice, smug with delight. "I swear he was about to cry!"

"Why would I look at him," Zabini answered, words muffled against skin. "when I'm kissing you?"

"Mmmm… Why would anyone?"

Severus rolled his eyes. "How charming to see that the Malfoy egotism hasn't dulled from one generation to the next," he said, turning to shoot a glare at the two. "You should take care, Draco, that yours does not bring you to the same sticky end it brought your father."

"Why you-" Malfoy went scarlet, shoved Zabini away from him, but froze to find Severus' wand pointing at him. He swallowed, took a breath, then looked aside.

"Take the hint, young Malfoy," Severus said, shrinking the bag Potter had let fall on the grass and setting it to float behind him, "and do consider learning from your father's mistakes rather than simply repeating them." And with that, he turned away, secure in his knowledge that Draco feared his wand too much to risk an attack, even from behind.

But he still kept a wordless _protego_ in the forefront of his mind as Draco's invaluable friend and toady dragged him out of danger. Later, there would doubtless be posturing about what the last Malfoy would have done, had he been allowed, but it would fool nobody, Snape knew. He didn't bother to hide his smirk as he cast a tracing spell, and set off to run the Boy Who Lived to ground.

The spell led Severus directly to the Three Broomsticks, which was no more than he'd expected. Severus still took a moment to savour the anticipation though -- for all his bluster about handling the dangerous work of trapping manticores later that night, it had taken only the slightest of insults to send the brat straight for the nearest bottle, and Snape was more than prepared to rub his perfect bloody nose in it.

Peering through the front window, Severus smirked to himself. There, in the shadowed corner of the taproom, only just visible by the gold of his neck scarf, sat the Hero of the Wizarding World. Sulking and useless as always.

Oh yes, this would be good.

Severus swept into the tavern on an icy gust of March, and not even the suspicious lull in the ambient conversation was enough to take the glow from his plans. Potter did not look up, but that was no matter -- Severus would have his attention soon enough.

"Pour another of whatever he's drinking," he told the startled bartender, "and send both over."

"But sir-" the boy stammered. Severus ignored him. Even an ex-Hufflepuff could understand so simple an order as that one. He merely stalked on through the murmuring crowd, to dump the bag of parcels, bottles and rodents onto the table in front of his 'partner'.

"If, as you boasted in the street, you intend to 'handle the dangerous part of the job', I believe you might be needing the _tools,_ will you not?" Potter's only reaction was that his hands, both resting on the bare tabletop, slowly curled closed. Severus pulled out the second chair, and settled into it with a smirk. "Or perhaps you intended to forego the plan of trapping and poisoning the beasts, and thought you might just bore them into a stupor with your championship sulking skills?"

Potter didn't look up though, and that was not only disappointing, it was actually a bit worrisome. For all his dislike of the brat, and as much entertainment as he found in deriding him, Severus did still rely upon Potter possessing a basic level of skill and competency.

"I'll handle them," he said in a very careful voice, head still tipped down, and glare fit to bore holes in the tabletop. "Thank you."

Snape raised one eyebrow, intrigued despite himself. Restraint from Harry Potter was certainly a novel experience.

The barkeep arrived, set two tumblers of amber on the table, and hovered tentatively for a moment, bottle in hand. "I didn't know what you wanted, Harry, so I just got you your regular…" he said with a nervous smile.

Potter's glare didn't waver or shift. "I don't want anyth-"

"Leave the bottle," Severus cut through, tapping both glasses with his wand so the liquor glowed briefly white.

"There's no need for purifying spells," the barkeep protested, but then quailed under Severus' pointed glower, and slunk away to the shelter of his bartop.

"A wonder Smith made it through the war alive," Severus mused. He pushed one of the tumblers toward Potter's unresponsive hands, and took a sip of the firewhiskey. "Trusting idiot."

"It's already warded against poisons," Potter said, still not looking up, "Glyph's right there on the bottle. Whole building is, and every bottle in it."

Snape turned the bottle, and scowled at the etched figure in the glass. "And since when is your arithmancy-"

"Since I had to figure out how to unravel the wardings protecting four horcruxes." Potter's voice should have sharpened at that. It should have turned petulant and defensive, but it didn't. It stayed level and leaden and dead. Snape disliked that exponentially more than he did the expected temper. "The liquor here's safe. We-" here, at last, his voice wavered, "we set up the protections after that business with Rosmerta and…" He waved a hand in the general direction of the school, "Sixth year. You remember."

As though either of them would ever forget Malfoy the Younger's first significant venture into Unforgivables. Or what had come of it. Severus took another sip of the liquor, rolling the smoky flavour over his tongue and wondering where to begin.

"So it's true then," he observed at last.

"What's that?" Potter's voice hardened just a bit, and because he clearly didn't want to talk about it, Severus pushed on.

"You and Malfoy," Severus nodded at the door, and the scene they'd left behind. "I'd discounted the rumours as pure schoolgirl fantasy. Not even you would be foolish enough to dally with someone who, according to Nymphadora's report, once broke your nose and left you helpless on a train." Potter's mouth tightened. Snape concealed a triumphant smile in his glass. "However, your performance out there does lend the rumour of your romance a certain credence."

And at last, Potter looked up, revealed the eyes which had always been so easy to plunder for every thought and plan, that green which had always waved the boy's least scrap of emotion like a battle standard. But in the gloom those eyes were flat, dull, and arid -- not even a spark of fury or grief glimmered there as he replied, "Well, it wasn't true. Obviously."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "For Malfoy, clearly. However in your case, I find myself unconvinced."

The corner of Harry's mouth twitched, and he looked down. "What else is new?" He took hold of the tumbler, twisting it around and around before him on the table, but never lifting it.

Severus waited.

"We were together," Potter eventually admitted. "For a while. Four months, from his release on bond, to his trial. And now that Draco's won his acquittal, he doesn't need me to make him look innocent anymore." Potter glanced up again, eerily calm, and clearly braced to weather Severus' most scathing opinion.

Annoyed at being so anticipated, Severus decided not to tender it. Well, not about Potter, anyhow. "Draco Malfoy never once in his life looked innocent, Mr. Potter, no matter who he was with. He had no gift for it."

Potter blinked. A little of that green ice cracked. "What?"

"I mean the boy was wise enough to know his word had the worth of thestral dung after his sixth year at Hogwarts," Severus supplied calmly. "He was right to seek a popular protector. Especially one with a reputation for…" he paused for a smirk, "championing lost causes."

"Well," that ghostly smile flickered out of sight as Potter's fringe fell back down to hide his eyes. "I knew Draco hadn't killed Dumbledore anyway. I was there that night, on the Astronomy Tower, and I…" Potter clacked his teeth closed on whatever memory he'd been about to spit out. Severus found himself relieved, if somewhat surprised at the young man's prudence. "Anyway, I'd have told the Wizengamot about it even without Draco … doing that." Potter shrugged, rubbed a thumb over his left bicep -- gingerly, as though even the light touch hurt.

"Seducing you?" Severus expected a flinch at the words, but was surprised to get only a resigned sigh instead.

"Making me think he could love me," Potter replied.

"He's a Slytherin," Severus frowned. "You cannot be surprised that he used you." That barb, at last, won a glare, hot and bright from under that messy thatch of black hair, and Severus was strangely relieved to see it.

"That doesn't mean he can't love," Potter said, "other Slytherins do. Parkinson still loves him, you can tell when you look at her. And Crabbe died for him, and Goyle nearly did in the end. And then there's you -- you loved Dumbledore, -- loved him enough to kill him."

Severus didn't flinch at the well-aimed strike, though he did award a point privately for the blow as he bought time with another sip of firewhiskey. "Well," he allowed after a moment, "Perhaps I might have done in a way, after a few years of coming to know the man instead of the teacher. However, your example is hardly applicable, as never at any time did I entertain notions of Albus Dumbledore being in 'love' with me." He ladled scorn over the word, lest his opinion of it be missed. "And too, the Headmaster's reasons for trusting _me_ had nothing whatsoever to do with romantic interest, and what are you smirking about, you wretched tit?"

Potter gave a weak chuckle and shook his head. "I just never thought of Professor Dumbledore as much of a 'romantic interest' sort of fellow, that's all."

Severus made a dismissive wave with his glass. "Nonsense Potter, it's not as if your generation invented sex, after all. Albus was a highly sought-after Wizard for quite a long time." Noting Potter's moue of distaste, he warmed to his theme. "He was a hero known the world over, and a powerful Pureblood Wizard into the bargain, for all that never mattered to him. His was the first name on many a Witch and Wizard's list of heart-throbs in his day -- in fact, if I remember correctly, he was Witch Weekly's first 'Most Eligible Bachelor'. He and Professor McGonagall used to-"

"Whoa, Snape," Potter laughed aloud, both palms up in surrender. "Point made! I don't want to know this!"

Severus settled back into his chair, pleased, oddly, to have broken through the brat's gloom. He watched Potter toy with his untasted drink for a long moment, then reached across the table and plucked it from between his hands, replacing it with his own half-empty glass. Potter shot him a bemused glance, but curled his fingers around it all the same.

"As for Malfoy," Severus said, ignoring the look, "I rather doubt it occurred to him that you might do what was right for its own sake. The more fool he. Clearly he expected to have to work for his pardon."

Potter looked down, his knuckles going white around the glass. "Yeah. Because I made that such a chore, being with me. He couldn't bloody well _wait_ to get away. Poor bastard."

Severus rolled his eyes and interrupted the melodrama with a slow, sarcastic round of applause. But for some unfathomable reason, there was no following explosion. Instead, that fleeting tickle of a smile reappeared at the corner of Potter's mouth as he flashed two fingers in Severus' direction.

"Stuff it," he said. "Draco had a really fine arse. I'm allowed to miss it a bit, even if he was a prick in the end."

"'Prick' being the operative word, apparently," Severus smiled into his glass, "given your current penchant for wandering about bleeding in public."

Again, Potter's thumb brushed across his shoulder. "Well, there is that."

Silence. Both waiting to see if the Earth would spin off its axis at their unprecedented accord. When all life failed to come crashing to an end, Severus stretched his legs into a more comfortable position and reached for the bottle. "A bit of advice from an experienced source, Potter," he said, topping off first Potter's glass, and then his own. "If you offer your heart to someone who has a higher regard for his own genitalia than for your intelligence, you cannot be surprised when it ends badly for you."

Potter blinked, looking for all the world as though he were actually _listening_ to the warning. Then he put the illusion to rest with a typically cheeky smirk. "Experienced, are you?"

"In betrayal?" Severus replied, arching one eyebrow, "Intimately."

Unaccountably, Potter actually laughed. "Don't worry, you're one person I _won't_ be falling in love with."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Drink your whiskey, you impertinent brat," he growled, "and don't pretend to knowledge you don't have."

Harry snorted softly, then lifted his glass to the light, as though considering the liquor's colour. "What about the game tomorrow," he asked, and the wariness crept back into his voice.

Severus shrugged. "I daresay one firewhiskey won't make you any more blind than usual."

"Hmph. Git," Potter observed. But he still drank.

"Besides, " Severus waited until he was mid-swallow to observe, "it's really the manticores you ought to be concerned about, isn't it?"


	3. In An Unguarded Moment

~* July 31, 2000 *~

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_Word has reached us here in the North, that you are about to sign a lucrative Quidditch contract with the Ballycastle Bats. Likewise, that you are laying the groundwork for what will surely be a stellar rise in the world of Ministry politics, that you are apprenticing to the Department of Mysteries' Unspeakables division, that you have bought the Quibbler, are starting a rock and roll band, moving to Rome to study lycanthrope advocacy law with Remus Lupin, opening a discotheque of ill repute in Diagon Alley, or possibly a five star restaurant in Bath, that you have joined the Aurors, the St. Mungo's experimental treatment ward, or the Church of Latter Day Saints, and also that you have announced your intention to live out your days in leisure, spending the Black fortune as fast as you can with young Mr. Malfoy. Or possibly Mr. Smith. Or Miss Bones. Or all three. Rumours vary widely on that point._

_Not knowing which of these unlikely futures upon which to offer my congratulations, I shall instead apply the insight which has come of nearly fifty years of counseling my young Lions, and shall make an invitation instead. Since you clearly find yourself at a loss for occupation now that the War is over, I believe you should come home._

_Come back to Hogwarts, Mr. Potter. This school has always been your home -- I daresay far more than that awful Muggle place in Surrey ever was -- and the truth of it is, we have need of you now. Since Albus' death, the school wards have begun to unravel. Merlin knows what that old fool did to them over the years he was Headmaster -- I shouldn't be surprised to find lodestones replaced by Lemon Sherbets and ley lines with Brighton Rock and candyfloss, to tell you the truth. Still, the truth of it is, Hogwarts' defenses have been a mass of spell upon preceding spell for nearly a thousand years -- never unraveled and set straight, simply shored up and patched wherever they began to fray. Now that Albus is gone, such measures simply will no longer do._

_Therefore I should like you to apply your power, your instincts, and your skill at defensive magic to the problem. You'll be paid the regular wages of any Hogwarts staff member, and given the same rights of room and board. (Though I seem to recall another rumour about your not being overly fond of crowds. If this is true, I believe arrangements can easily be made to reconstruct the old gamekeeper's cottage by the Forbidden Forest. I recall that was always a favorite haunt of yours, Mr. Potter.)_

_I would not require you to have more interaction with the students or staff than you choose to, barring that I shall expect you to meet regularly with myself, and with Severus Snape (who is also returning to Hogwarts, in capacity as a researcher, and theoretical specialist) regarding your plans and progress. Given your spirited and even-handed defense of him before the Wizengamot earlier this month, I have no doubt that you two are capable of putting your legendary feud second to the needs of the school._

_Do consider my offer, Mr. Potter. You're welcome here, as well as wanted, and I know for a fact that the work is neither beyond your capabilities, nor a waste of your time and considerable talents. How many of your other potential futures can say that, I ask you?_

_Reply by September first, if you please, or simply show up then if you like, as I've instructed the castle elves to make up quarters for you, just in case._

_I remain, of course, your faithful friend,  
Minerva McGonagall, OoM,  
Headmistress of Hogwarts' School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

 

~* November 14th, 2001 *~

The knock rattled his door in quick, angry thuds. Startled, Harry nearly dropped the stirring rod into his tiny cauldron, but managed to force his throbbing hand to hold on just a bit tighter.

"Who is it?" he shouted, switching hands to wipe a trickle of blood onto his jeans before it could contact the glass rod.

"Potter, open the bloody door!" Snape's voice, muffled by an inch and a half of solid oak, but still it was enough to make Harry groan aloud and roll his eyes. "What is the meaning of this damned note?"

"Just what it says, Snape," Harry shouted back, watching the rolling boil carefully, and flexing his right hand against a sudden cramp. "The manticores weren't getting through the boundaries at all, they were already inside the grounds. Look, I'm busy right now. I'll find you later, and we can discuss-"

"We will discuss it now, you idiot!" Harry jumped as Snape's head appeared in his kitchen window, which had been standing open to vent the brewing fumes. "You can't expect me to just- what the devil are you doing?"

"What it looks like I'm doing," Harry said through set teeth. The potion turned an angry red, and he rapped the glass rod smartly on the cauldron side. It shattered with a rising chime, and Harry dropped the lot in. "If you'll just give me ten minutes to finish this, you won't have to watch-"

"Watch you collapse over your cauldron, which is," Snape leaned in to peer around Harry at the worktable, his beetle-black eyes narrowing at the hastily dissected chunk of manticore's tail, with its poison barb cracked open and plundered, "at least half an hour from final stage for a proper antivenin. How long ago were you stung, you imbecile?"

Harry sighed, and went to open the front door. "Happened last night. After midnight, I think" he said, stepping back as Snape came storming up his steps like a bird of ill omen. "And I wasn't stung, just bitten- oi!" He jerked back a step, struggling as the dark man seized his wrist and pulled his right arm out straight. But Snape's grip was too strong, and Harry too sore to fight him off.

He managed not to yelp as Snape pulled his bloodied sleeve off the wound, but he couldn't hold back a hiss when those iron-hard fingers pressed into his swollen flesh and dark, reeking blood welled suddenly into the crescent-shaped tear. Snape lowered his nose to the wound and sniffed.

"Did you _want_ to lose your damned arm?" he said at last, his face chalky with rage for some reason Harry was too tired to bother sorting out. "Why the devil didn't you come and find ... Madam Pomfrey?"

"Quarantine," Harry managed to grit, prising at Snape's fingers with his left hand, "Elf pox in the Hufflepuff third year dormitory. Thought she'd enough to deal with already. Will you let me get TO this please?"

"Fume colour puts it ten minutes from the ash stage," Snape replied absently, gentling his hold a bit, but still using it to drag Harry toward a chair, "You've time to explain to me how the devil you managed to get yourself manticore-bitten on a perfectly normal curfew patrol when I know fully well you've been setting out those baited traps in the forest for months now, and caught precisely nothing!"

"No, I DON'T have time!" Using the torque of his shoulder, Harry at last managed to wrench his arm loose, though it made spots dance before his eyes. "Not with this version, okay? I really have to watch this, or it'll -- SHITE!" He lunged for the table, and managed to get the small bowl of phoenix ash scattered across its surface before it boiled over.

He took a moment to lean on the table, fingers twitching as the hot black blood dripped from them. Snape loomed behind him, but Harry set his teeth and refused to let himself be intimidated. He knew how to do this, damn it! He _wasn't_ pants at potions -- he'd saved his own life more than once during --

"Where did you find this variation?" Snape's voice, oddly quiet, pierced Harry's building temper straight through. Harry glanced, and found the man's attention fixed on the much-folded, hand-written recipe, weighted at the corners with two mossy stones, a snail's shell, and a bloody knife.

"The Black house library," he admitted, reaching for the owl feathers. "Sort of. We --" he swallowed, "There's a few changes from the original. Shortened brewing time, specific poison instead of general-effect-"

"And non-ingestible."

Harry nodded. "Bezoars are faster than any antidote for swallowed poisons. This is just for bites." It didn't take legilimency to know that Snape would think of Nagini. Harry'd been poisoned by that snake three separate times before he'd finally managed to capture and destroy her. If her aim had been better the first time, he never would have lived long enough to work out this potion variation with Hermione afterward.

"The left-handed stirring," Snape nodded at Harry's awkward grip on the feathers swirling through the thickening gloop, "Your own little touch of widdershins magic?"

"Er, what?" Harry asked, then thought better of the question. "No. I just don't want to get blood in -- Oof!" He staggered as Snape shoved him out of the way without another word. "Hey!"

"If you haven't managed to absorb the relevance of directional force by now, Potter, " he said, plucking the dripping feathers from Harry's hand and plunging them back into the cauldron without missing a beat, "then you had better leave the rest of this to someone who can keep it from doing more damage to you than that bite!"

For a moment, it was on the tip of Harry's tongue to shout that he'd bloody well made this potion fine without Snape's interference, and the great bat could just piss off out of it. But only for a moment. Because really, he _was_ too tired. Harry scrubbed at his face for a moment, then hooked a foot through his kitchen stool and dragged it near.

"I found a nest on the grounds," he sighed, watching the smooth motion of the pale feathers, pinched in pale fingers over the deepening red of the potion. Harry let his eyes relax on that sight while his mouth did the other business of import. "That's why the traps in the forest didn't catch any of -- bastards were only going out there to hunt." It was soothing, in a way, the studied grace of that precise arc, the turn of wrist instead of elbow, the balancing lift of the last finger. "There's a cave down by the lake, just by the secret tunnel that lets out of the dungeons. You know. By the troll statue."

The stirring paused, then resumed fluidly. "I know of it," Snape said, as if annoyed that Harry knew of it too.

"There was a queen in there. Had a full clutch. Two hatched out before I could get her off me and kill her." Harry sighed, ran his good hand through his hair, which was still stiff with sand and lake-water. "Three more queens showed up at her noise, and then the tom a little after that. He's the one that--" he raised his arm a little.

Snape lay the feathers aside and peered at the recipe, but oddly, the motion seemed very like a nod. "Bit of the beast?" he inquired, one eyebrow lifting. "The tail, in this case, I suppose?"

Harry nodded. "Poison sac went in earlier, so now it's just…yeah," he sighed as Snape flicked his wand and sent the scorpion-like sting floating into the cauldron. It dissolved the instant it touched the potion, which instantly released a great cloud of jasmine-smelling fumes, and turned the colour of butter.

Harry reached for it, only to wince as Snape's wand rapped his knuckles sharply. "Let it cool, Potter. I've no interest in making you a burn-salve this morning as well."

"It works better when it's hot," he replied, as annoyed by Snape's meddling as by the involuntary whine in his voice.

"And when it is merely hot, rather than scalding, I shall let you dump the whole damned lot over your head if you so desire," Snape replied with a glare, moving to physically block Harry's access to the cooling pot of relief, "In the meantime, finish your report."

Harry rolled his eyes, and sat back. His arm hurt twenty times more now that he knew there was a cure for it just _there._ He set his teeth against it, and soldiered on. "There were seven adults in the pride. I killed them all, but I know there were kits that stayed hidden. I didn't feel much like hunting them out at the time, what with…" he raised his arm. "I figured I'd go back out after them tonight-"

"That can't wait until tonight," Snape cut him off. "Weasley is taking a class to the lakeside today, after hinkyunks."

"All right then," Harry threw up his good hand in frustration. "I'll go as soon as my arm's healed. I can warn Charlie off on my way-"

"Oh spare me the melodrama, Potter," Snape glowered. "I'll warn him, and the Headmistress myself, after you fall asleep. Which," he added, turning to take up a ladle, "you will be doing roughly three minutes after this potion you've made hits your skin." He dipped into the cauldron and poured a thin steaming ribbon of yellow back in.

"I will not!"

"You're very nearly in shock where you sit, imbecile," Snape replied, pouring again. "That's what we call that grey colour to your face, and the fact that you cannot actually stand up just now. And you needn't glare at me, because that's what _will_ happen when you go and bleed for six hours straight. Pour a hot liquid over the injury, and even you will go down afterward, no matter how pig-headed you are. Now take that shirt off, and come here."

_At last!_ Harry thought, stripping his ruined shirt off with a yank and a rip. He crowded close, stretching his torn, swollen forearm over the cauldron so Snape could pour the antivenin over the wound. This time he didn't manage to choke back his whimper. It wasn't so much the heat, as the aching blaze of magic and life that pounded into the torn flesh with every trickle of the potion across it. Harry found his knees buckling at the roaring wave of sensation.

Snape's free arm whipped around his waist, propping Harry to his his side. "Keep your arm up, fool," he snapped, settling Harry more firmly against him for the second pour. "The cauldron is still hot enough to burn you."

And Harry tried, but the second pour made his vision grey, and his knees go watery again. With a curse, Snape tugged him over a step, then used his own body to pin Harry upright against the table. Then, while Harry was still trying to find the breath to protest, he reached around on both sides to hold Harry's arm up, and to ladle more pain over it. Harry's cheeks were wet, and his jaw sore when Snape at last let the ladle fall.

Harry didn't even realize he was leaning back into Snape's body until one lean arm snaked across his belly to prop him up. Even then, he couldn't quite manage to pull away. A distant part of his brain was cringing at the sheer volume of ammunition he was giving Snape for free here, but a much closer concern was the fact that he couldn't seem to catch his breath. Or to stop shaking. He let his head fall back into Snape's shoulder, and concentrated on not sniveling.

"Can you walk, Potter?" Snape's breath stirred Harry's ear after a few moments, raising the hairs along his neck, and ripening his tremble to a shudder.

Harry shook his head. "Not yet. G'me a minute-- Yie!" He clutched at Snape's arm as he was summarily whipped around where he stood, then tipped facedown over the man's shoulder and hefted off his feet.

"Put me down, you bloody-" he gave a kick or two, but stopped as Snape's grip on his arse slipped a little. Much as he objected to being carried, he objected more to the idea of getting dropped on his head.

"Be still, idiot," was all Snape had to say about it. Five strides, and a rather too-narrow doorway later, Harry found himself rolling off that bony shoulder to land in a heap on his bed. The springs groaned only slightly louder than Harry did.

"Ow…" he rolled onto his back, toeing his shoes off weakly, "Call that bedside manner, do you?"

"You're welcome," Snape replied, yanking on the duvet until Harry rolled to the other side of the bed. "Next time I shall leave you to crack your skull on your kitchen floor, shall I?" He dragged Harry back to the center of the bed, then flung the duvet over him.

"Mph." Harry laughed weakly, interrupted by a yawn. "Not what they mean by 'sweeping a bloke off his feet,' you know? Just fr' that, I'm not loaning you that recipe."

"I'll remember to put it back before you awaken then," Snape said, rolling his eyes as he bent to pluck Harry's glasses from his face. "Now pay attention, idiot. What did you do with the manticore corpses? You didn't just leave them lying down by the lakeside, did you?"

"Course not," Harry managed to crack an eye open to glare, "Owled Pr'fess'r Slughorn same time's I owled you. He'll be-"

"Slughorn?" Snape jerked back. "BLAST!" And with that, he whirled from the room. Harry was asleep before his ringing footfalls faded.

 

~*~

When Harry awoke again, sore and bleary on the leeside of fourteen hours' blackness, it was to a comfortable fire, candles glowing cheerily about his cottage, and a hot meal waiting under a warming charm on his table. Of the potion and the brewing supplies, there was no sign, not even a bloodstain on the wood or flagstones.

Harry grinned, thinking that at last Dobby had begun to learn the value of letting him sleep through mealtimes, and helped himself to the thick stew and a hunk of bread. He was nearly through his second bowl when he spotted the letters. Three of them, tucked under the edge of the tureen.

The first, in Charlie Weasley's handwriting, was a hastily scribbled note of thanks for warning him about the manticores, followed by a not-so-subtle feeling-out to see if Harry had heard the Big Family News yet, and would he possibly like to come down to the Burrow for -- Harry crumpled the note into the fire.

The second was from the Headmistress, expressing her concern at the news of Harry's adventure, urging him to take his time in fully recovering from his injury, but pointing out that the castle's wards should have kept out the manticores, and so clearly they were decaying much faster than any of them had realized, and would Harry please accelerate his meetings with Snape to twice or three times a week until they had found a way to see to the repairs?

"Wonderful. Because Merlin knows _that'll_ be restful," Harry grumbled, sopping the last of his stew. But he set her letter aside rather than consigning it to the flames.

The last letter was, of course, from Snape. Harry scowled at it for a long moment, waiting for it to erupt into a Howler -- or, as would be more likely in Snape's case, a Snarker. But it only lay there on his tabletop, staring back at him in the Potions Master's neat script.

"All right," Harry said at length, "Let's get it over with then." He broke the seal with the back of his spoon, and the potion recipe fell out. Harry only just managed to catch it before it landed in the stew. He turned it over, and found the margins crammed with more of Snape's observations, criticisms and suggestions. Harry turned it face down to the table, making a mental note to recopy it as it had been before.

_Potter,_ he went on to read, _Six manticore kits remained. I have found and dispatched them all, along with four more brooding nests. You'll find two of the newest eggs in your warming pan, under a stasis spell, since I've no doubt you meant to secure one as a new pet for Hagrid regardless of legality or good sense. The smaller one is most likely a still egg. No doubt the Wolf will find it an amusing curiousity. You may get them past French and Italian Customs yourself, however, as I am now glad to be shut of the entire manticore trafficking business._

"Huh," Harry finished his bread and pushed the bowl away. "Except for selling off the dissected kits for potions ingredients, you mean. Hypocrite."

_As to the Headmistress' request, I believe I agree. Much as it will doubtless pain you to give up your life of glittering social conquest, the matter of the wards now requires rather more of our attention than before. I have, in my research, collected several of the books and parchments which address the matter of the castle's wards. Kindly bring yourself to my office tomorrow evening, so we may begin going over them.  
S. Snape._

"Glittering social-" Harry settled on laughter rather than outrage, though for the life of him he couldn't tell why. Harry patrolled the grounds five nights out of seven, chasing off the ghoulies, ghosties, and long-leggety beasties encroaching from the Forbidden Forest, and his 'partner' knew it! "Snape, you're a real piece of work," he sighed, and set the letter down. Then he picked it up again as a post script on the back caught his eye.

_Do have a glass or two from that bottle on your mantle, and stay indoors tonight, Potter. You're in no fit state to wander the grounds in search of escaped manticores with the amount of muscle relaxant I put in that stew._


	4. Relics

~*February 20th, 2002 *~

_Dear Hagrid._

_Thanks for your letter. Sorry it's taken me so long to reply, but I've been really busy around here lately. ~~The wards are~~ Mittens sounds as if he's growing fast. Has it really only been three months since he hatched? He must be bigger than Fang by now. I hope Olympe doesn't mind him too much. Congratulations, by the way. This will be your third baby, won't it? It's a good thing you both wanted a big family, isn't it? ~~Sometimes I think~~_

_The staff is all doing fine here at Hogwarts. Pretty much like always before, only with you in France, and Charlie teaching your class. And no Voldemort, of course. Which I guess, makes it not the same at all, doesn't it? Still, everyone's fine._

_Thank you for inviting me to Easter at Beauxbatons. I don't actually think I'll ~~want to go and get a face full of 'happy family'~~ be able to get free though. ~~I'm real pants at family gatherings now, you know? I just always feel like I don't belong, you know? Like the way Molly used to fall over herself to pretend I was just like one of her kids, only she never tried to warn me about~~ I'll probably still be hip deep in work then. Sorry, but thanks for inviting me anyhow._

_Snape. You asked about him, I remember. I suppose I'd told you I'm working with him, hadn't I? Rebuilding Hogwarts' ward system. What a chore that's turned out to be! Every spell is tied into twelve more, and some are so old they're practically senile, in addition to being absolutely undocumented in any source we can find. There's elemental magic propping up sex magic, shoved in between blood magic and necromancy, smashed together with ritual magic, semiotics, and in some cases, stuff so old we don't even know what to call it. We found actual cave paintings down three levels from the Chamber of Secrets. It's mad. Sometimes we just sit there with all the books, and a bottle of whiskey, and wait for something to start making sense._

_We're getting along better though, him and me. Dunno why, exactly. He's still a right bastard at times, and Lord knows we still fight, but we don't, you know, fight anymore. It doesn't make him froth at the mouth when I disagree with him anymore, for one thing. He doesn't like it when I'm right and he's wrong, but he's only tried to throw me out of my own cottage once, and he's only thrown a couple of books at my head. I'm pretty sure he wasn't expecting me to throw them back at him, and since my aim's better than his, he quit that pretty quick._

_I don't know. I suppose ~~in an odd way, we might be friends now.~~ he must be lonely. I mean he doesn't have the students to keep him busy, and the rest of the staff don't really talk to him, no matter what he did after sixth year, and God knows he never lets that big nose of his be seen in Hogsmeade. I don't think he has anybody else. ~~Kind of like me.~~_

_We talk sometimes. After we've chucked in working for a night, you know? Actually talk, and if that isn't weird, I don't know what is, but we do. I think he started that, if you can believe it. Which is okay, because I'm the one who started bringing whiskey to the meetings. He brings brandy. Or Pernod, which tastes like cologne, but I don't tell him that because he gets pissy. Anyway. We talk. I came out to him, which was kind of redundant, since he guessed I was bent all the way back when I was in school. He says that's why he kept giving me detention sixth year, so I wouldn't get ~~Gin's~~ some poor girl's hopes up._

_Did you know he fancied blokes too? I didn't. Actually, I never figured him for fancying much of anything, except slimy cauldrons and doxy guts and making kids cry, but he does. Or he told me he does. And last Saturday we spent about four hours arguing the relative merits of Draco Malfoy's arse against Lucius Malfoy's. So, yeah, I figure he's not just having me on. Surreal, I know._

_He isn't dating anyone though. Naturally, since I just told you he doesn't see anybody. He doesn't talk too much about his past, but then again, neither do I. And the parts we both were here for… well, there's no point in digging all that up again, is there? And I don't much want to hear him go on about the stuff I wasn't around for, since he always seems to want to take that out on me whenever he brings it up. So we talk about the work, mostly, and… I guess the short answer is, Snape's doing fine. I'm doing fine. Hogwarts is doing fine, dodgy wardings notwithstanding, and the staff is doing fine too._

_I'll let Charlie know you asked about Ron and Hermione. He'll be able to tell you how they're doing. I don't ~~talk to~~ see them much these days. Too busy, you know? Anyway._

_I've sent you some Unicorn hairs I found while I was patrolling the Forest paths. Thought you'd like them. Remind you some of the old days, eh? I ~~ miss you~~ hope you have a good spring, Hagrid. Please remember me to Olympe and the kids. And Grawp. And Fang and Mittens too. Tell Mittens his Da's bite mark still hasn't faded from my arm. He ought to like that._

_Cheers, Hagrid.  
Harry Potter._

 

~*~

Loneliness has a heartbeat. It has a rhythm and a pulse like the subtle tide of a mountain lake. It collects and it directs, it forms and it steers, taking many objects into its flow, over time. Most of those taken up are pushed back toward the shore, to fetch up in soft, sheltered leeside eddies, brushed together with others just alike. Other objects, those more isolated, can come to orbit one another over time. Intrinsically unchanged, these objects which are normally independent, come together in loneliness' grip, and alone in the emptiness, they seem to dance an endless pavanne between the water and the sky.

 

~* May 29th 2002 *~

"You're late, Potter." Severus said, not looking up from his cauldron as his door opened and shut again.

"Pshh," came the reply as Potter shook the rain from his cloak and hung it on the extra hook beside the door. "Are you late for a hot date then?"

"Idiot," Severus said, distracted as he counted strokes.

"Seriously, it's a madhouse up there," Potter went on, heading to the sideboard to deposit the bottle beside the pair of glasses Severus had set out earlier. "There are sprogs flying about in every direction. Shrieking, weeping, throwing food, hexing each other's ears off. I can't tell if they're happy, or about to burst into flames."

"Last day of classes," Severus finished his count, tapped the iron rod carefully on the side of the cauldron, and spelled the fire out. "Be glad nothing's exploded yet. Surely you've not forgot the joys of Leaving Weekend? The little animals are all hell-bent on wreaking their yearly quota of havoc before they're herded back onto the train, and back to those who spawned them."

"Is it, already?" Potter turned with an incredulous look. "Can't be! The Leaving Feast isn't until-"

"Half an hour from now," Snape replied. "Sixteen bloody years of my life, it was the day I looked forward to the most. You don't imagine I'd mistake the sounds of it now, do you?"

"Yeah, because it was your last chance to take points before the House Cup award," Potter grumbled.

Severus didn't bother to deny it, merely continued putting away his supplies with a smirk. "As I said, however, you're late. Luckily, the elves are still fond of you." Snape pointed farther along his worktable, where several covered dishes sat steaming in the gloom. "I suppose they thought you might starve over the course of our scheduled meeting, though in four months, you've yet to do so."

"They're generous," Potter shrugged, "They like feeding people. I don't see the harm, and _you_ like Dobby's chicken pie, so I'm betting this is just another excuse to complain that they brought enough for two-"

"Hippogriffs."

"Fine. I'll eat yours," Harry pulled the tray toward him and started uncovering dishes, "I've been out walking the wardlines since dawn, trying to find those damned lodestones mentioned in Aristae Twixt's logs, and I could probably eat a hippogriff all by myself."

"You walked them?" Snape sat, pulled the tray back to the center of the table, and helped himself to the pie. Potter nodded, and kept eating. "_Well?_"

"Well wha?" Potter said around his mouthful of pie

"Well, how many did you _find,_ you imbecile?"

With a look only slightly soured, Potter inscribed a zero in the air with his fork. Snape cursed, then narrowed his eyes as he spotted the twist of smile Potter never could seem to hide. "You're lying," he accused, and the aggravating boy laughed.

"Am not. I didn't find a single lodestone where you said there would be one."

"Bloody fool! Can't you even read a map? My directions were clear-"

"And I followed them. No lodestones."

Severus banged his fork down on the table and stood. "Are you implying, you infantile brat, that my calculations-"

"I'm _implying_," Potter rose as well, digging in his pocket, and scattering a handful of rock crystal shards across the end of the table, "that we were wrong about the lodestones; they can't handle the kind of strain Dumbledore's defenses put on them. Or maybe it was standing up to Voldemort that broke them. Or, hell, maybe they broke before any of us were born, I don't know. The point is, all I found at each site was more of this. Your map was fine. It's your theory that's cracked." And he sat back down to his meal.

Severus glowered at the shards with utter loathing. "Only you, Potter," he gritted. "Only you can do one day's work and UNDO three months of progress!"

"You'd rather lose a year's worth of work when our replacements explode?" Harry shrugged, taking another helping of potatoes. "Me, I want these wards to stay where we put them. And you know what else I want?" He peered up at his colleague, who surrendered his towering rage in favour of a sulking return to his own meal.

"A pony?" Severus stabbed viciously at a piece of chicken.

"Can't," he shook his head, "Hippogriffs would eat it. No, I want the staff to be able to apparate right onto the castle grounds when we're done."

Severus stared. "You're mad."

"C'mon, wouldn't it be brilliant? Not to have to run everywhere when there was an emergency? Not to have to fight with the damned staircases?"

"Intruders, interloping parents, reporters, kidnappers, and pederasts able to blink in and out at will?" Severus countered, "Not to mention truancy issues with the upper forms."

"That's why it would only be the staff," Potter said, "though cor, what I wouldn't have given to apparate out of some of your detentions."

"Idiot," Severus observed, uncovering a dish of steaming blackberry jam tarts. He took the one Potter had been reaching for. "At any rate, it's impossible. Anti-apparation wards are uniform by definition-"

"Yes, which is why they have to be cast on a solid structure," Potter mumbled. "Area-effect-

"Requires a definition of "area"-" Severus hesitated, suspicious at Potter's sudden support of his argument.

"Like ward-stones?" The quartz fragments on the table glittered between them, less smug and less green than Potter's eyes. "If we tried a fluid-" Severus groaned, but Potter pushed on over him. "We could use blood to key it to-"

"Bollocks," Severus threw his fork down with a flourish. "Blood magic at Hogwarts! Perhaps in ancient times, but in this 'enlightened age,' the Ministry would never have it!"

"You'd be telling them, would you?"

"And what would you do with your illegal potion once you'd found some competent brewer who was willing to risk imprisonment to make it for you, Potter -- pour a bloody line in the dirt?"

"I don't know yet, all right!" Potter slammed his own fork down. "I just know it'll work. I know it can be done!"

"Merlin spare me another dose of your bloody intuition-"

"I'VE SEEN IT, SNAPE!"

Accustomed as Severus was to Potter's impressive lung power, for once he was more interested in the words than in their delivery. "When?" he demanded, "Where?" But on some level, he already knew what the answer would be.

"Wales. In the caverns under the ruins at Dinas Emrys. It was where Merlin told King Vortigern-"

"I know the bloody legend, Potter!"

"Then you'll remember the _pool_? Where the dragons were?" Snape nodded, and Potter did too, pushing his plate away, as though the memory robbed him of his appetite. "Well, Voldemort remembered too. Thought it was a fitting place to hide his last horcrux. It was in a bubble of air at the bottom of that pool." Potter raised his eyes from the depth of the memory. "The only way to get to Ravenclaw's wand was to apparate. The water-" a shadow flit across his eyes before Potter could shake it off. "Bad things happened if anyone tried to get there any other way."

"And I still do not see why this is relevant," Snape began, ignoring the fact that he had no idea how such a charm could have been cast to begin with "Even you were able to apparate to a clearly visible target by the end of your-"

"No, that's the point," Potter cut him off, intensity doing what volume never had. "It could only be reached by _Voldemort_ apparating in." Oh. Well that did put another face on it. Severus scowled, but settled in to listen.

"He was there. Nearly caught us, but my scar gave me enough warning to hide." Potter picked up his fork once more, and began toying with the crumbs left on his plate. "We saw him apparate, saw him through the water while he checked on it, and we thought we knew the secret, but we were wrong. After he'd gone, we tried it. I got through. She-" Potter stopped, and Severus realized that Ginevra Weasley's much-discussed 'disappearance' had probably happened in that very cave.

"It was the blood spell," Potter went on after an uncomfortable silence. "The one Wormtail worked on me when he brought Voldemort back. That was why I could get through the wards in the water. So you see," Potter raised his eyes, just as haunted as before, but not as drowned in memory, "It can be done, Severus. It has been done."

And to that, there was nothing Severus was prepared to say, except, "I don't suppose you remembered that it was your turn to bring the whiskey?"

 

~*~

It took two hours and half a bottle of whiskey for the conversation to turn to a less depressing subject. Or rather, to a subject Potter and his relentless celebrity probably considered less depressing, at any rate.

"I do not _go_ on holiday, Potter," Severus said with as much dignity as he could muster while ensconced in an armchair before the fire with his feet propped up.

"What, never?" Severus shook his head, and Potter laughed as though he couldn't believe it. "Not even now that Voldemort's gone, and the last of the Death Eaters locked up? Because it's not as if you couldn't, you know."

"Oh, no doubt I could," Severus gestured angrily with his glass, which sloshed hot gold across his knuckles, "I daresay I could lease a tent on Brighton pier, and charge a sickle a head for people to come and gape at the last living Death Eater, the Murderer Who Got Away With It, the Trai-"

Potter made an extremely rude noise, then smirked when Severus glared. "Quit feeling sorry for yourself. It's only a holiday. And it's not like you couldn't go to the Continent to get away from it. I heard about a beach in San Tropez where there's no clothing allowed, and the entire resort is aimed at gay wizards… quit that."

"Hm?" Severus glanced up as Potter threw a handkerchief at him.

"Stop licking your knuckles. It's…" Potter blushed, then took a drink. "It's unsanitary. You were brewing earlier, and you haven't washed them. ANYway," Potter resolutely looked away as Severus chased a final drop down between two fingers, "The point is, a place like that seems like a decent place to go and meet someone, doesn't it?"

"Meet someone."

"You know. Company." Potter shrugged, examining his boots as though fascinated. "For a week or two, anyway. Could be nice, don't you think?"

Severus sniffed. "I'd sooner spend the summer scrubbing Longbottom's cauldrons."

"Why?" At last Potter looked up. "I mean you said you're gay -- well, theoretically gay, since you're not actually -- you know -- involved with anyone right now. So what's the-"

"I'm an Englishman," Severus emptied his glass for emphasis. "I positively loathe foreigners, and I rather believe that any place named San Tropez would be full of them."

Potter, of course, had the gall to chuckle. "Snape, you loathe everyone, but that isn't going to get you lai-"

"Quite right, Potter -- I loathe everyone. Which makes the idea of traveling to a holiday spot filled with brash, trashy queens, and hirsute, leather-clad men who want to be called 'Daddy' all the more repulsive, thank you." He glowered, and Potter wisely choked down the smile that was tickling his impertinent mouth. "I plan to remain here at Hogwarts and continue my research over the summer," Severus continued after a moment, "while you and the rest of the ravening hordes go safely abroad to fetch home the latest dose of the clap.

"Not me, thanks." Potter's voice was unaccountably bleak.

"Why not? You're young and," Severus waved his hand in vague search for the word, "…popular. I daresay you'd hardly need a nude beach in Sans Toupée to catch yourself a paramour when the Three Broomsticks is just down the road."

For a moment, that old, haunting deadness passed over Potter's eyes, eclipsing the fire's gleam as he stared. After a long moment though, the young man shrugged. "Just not interested," he said. "Not anymore. I've decided you're right about dating -- it isn't worth it. Clouds things up. Makes people lie, and use, and I'm through with it." As though to punctuate, he emptied his glass.

"Bollocks," Snape said, reaching for the bottle to refill both.

"What?"

"You're not cut out for the life of a bitter old hermit," Severus cast a long, and scathing glance over the young man in his spare armchair; tall and fit, tousled and tanned, with competent, precise hands and a face that hovered safely on the hard side of androgyny, but which housed such guileless, tragic eyes… No, the youth of the Nation wouldn't have it. "You'll be back to your conquests before the end of the summer," Severus predicted. "You always did crave adoration, and you know it."

Potter's gaze sharpened to a glare, and for a moment, he was again that petulant, infuriating boy in detention as he snarled, "Shut up, Snape."

Amused, Severus leveled a look at him. Potter's glare deepened, and his cheeks began to scorch red. Severus shrugged, but his smirk made it plain that he considered his point unassailable.

Potter sulked in silence for a few moments more, then crossed his legs on the footstool and surrendered the point by asking, "What research?"

As if he really wanted to know. "Research, Potter. That unpleasant thing I keep doing with books and maps while you sulk about the school and wave your wand at things."

"Hang on," Potter leapt on the argument eagerly. "You're not going to keep on with those quartz focuses while I'm gone, I won't have it-"

"Worried that I might solve the problem without you, Potter," Severus rose to the challenge, more than ready to make him pay for every shard of crystal he'd had the nerve to bring back to the damned workroom.

"Worried you're going to destroy all our work this year when the damned things shatter!"

"We don't know that they-"

"What, you call those whole?"

"We do not know precisely what made them break-"

"I keep _telling you,_ they're too brittle to carry that much power! Fluid matrix is the way to go-"

"Oh, SOD your bloody-" Snape paused, suddenly aware that they had come nose to nose across the drinks table, each perched on the inner corner of his seat, digging their fingers deep into the padded arms.

Potter's breath smelled of whiskey and blackberries.

Severus blinked, then abruptly sat back into his own chair. "Oh, do belt up, Potter," he grumbled. "I'm too drunk to try and make you see reason right now. Anyway," he went on, pretending not to see the triumphant flash in Potter's eyes, "I'd planned to spend the summer months documenting and logging my further developments on the Wolfsbane potion."

"You're still working on that?"

"I am," he conceded. Then, when Potter tried to hide a smirk, he snapped, "What? It's a fascinating combination of charm, hex, and potion."

"And you hate werewolves."

At which, Severus frowned. "Don't presume to know what I hate, Potter. I've told you that before."

"But you-"

"I _fear_ werewolves," he cut through the expected accusation. "Any sane man would."

Potter shook his head, that damned lopsided grin spreading across half his face. "And somehow that still doesn't explain you spending your summer researching a potion for them. Especially when you don't even own the rights, so you can't make any money on it even if you do improve it."

"Not every Slytherin craves money, Potter." Not that Severus expected the brat to understand such a subtlety. Slughorn's favour-trade and Malfoy's power-brokering had left deep scars across House Slytherin's honour, each in their own turn, and Gryffindors never did understand the Serpent's honour, even at its most plain. But at least Potter appeared to be making an effort.

"Well, why _do_ you do it then," he asked after a moment's thought. "Since you must have a reason."

"If you can't guess, I shan't tell you," Severus smirked. "I daresay I'm used to you not fathoming my motivations by now."

He waved a hand to signify that topic finished, and barely managed to keep the single malt from slopping out of his glass as he did so. "Speaking of the Werewolf, however, I take it you'll be traveling to Italy this summer to visit him?"

"Yes," Potter replied, though he didn't sound quite as eager for a Roman holiday as Severus might have expected. "When he let me buy him the villa he made me promise I'd go every year, and I thought I'd spend my birthday with him this year."

"So you're leaving in July then?"

"Yeah, for a couple of weeks," Potter said, draining his glass again. Merlin knew where a trim little thing like him put it all. Perhaps he was one of those wizards who metabolized alcohol straight into magic, the way Albus had used to do with sugar. Severus made a mental note to run some tests in case the brat ever managed to die properly. "I'll be back here before the new crop of sprogs arrives though," he was saying when Severus dragged his attention back to the subject at hand.

"Will you indeed," he sniffed, setting his glass aside in dignified surrender, "Well then allow me to suggest you put some effort into that fluid matrix idiocy you seem so very set upon before you go."

"Really?" Severus might as well have promised the wretched brat the House Cup to go by the gleam in his green, green eyes. How they caught the firelight, those eyes. Much too distracting.

Severus looked away. "I suppose, if you can show me a scrap of supporting evidence or documentation before you leave, I just might consider it worth my time to investigate the idea while you're gone."

Even caught from the corner of his eye, Potter's grin was blinding.

 

~* October 31, 1998 *~

"They're gone, Harry," Remus said, rolling his socks neatly by hand and tucking them into the corners of his valise. "She's ashes in a box, and he's not even that, now that the Veil's been destroyed. They won't be coming back to me, neither one of them. It's time I moved on as well, that's all."

Harry paced across the attic room, scuffing dust puffs into the chilly air. "You could stay at Hogwarts."

Remus didn't even look up at that. "No. I'm still a werewolf. Dumbledore pushed his luck hiring me the first time. Minerva doesn't have the excuse of a war or a curse on the position to justify it now."

"But you could live at Grimmauld Place," Harry tried. "You could write your book-"

Then he did turn, and his tawny eyes were harder than Harry could remember having seen them. "I'll write my book abroad, Harry, but I'd sooner sleep in a rubbish bin and beg scraps from Knockturn Alley than ever set foot in that house again."

"But you could-"

"But I won't." They stared for a long moment, and it was Harry who looked away first, hating himself for it. After a moment, the valise closed with a creak and a click, and Remus's scuffed shoes appeared in Harry's field of vision.

"I'm tired of England, Harry," he said, as if by way of a peace offering. "I'm tired of the way the damp gets into my bones and never leaves. I'm tired of the tasteless food and the bloody self-righteous English always passing judgment on me… too poor, too shabby, too dodgy-looking, and wasn't he friends with that criminal back in the war?"

Harry looked up, suddenly angry all over again. "They're going to give you your medal, Remus. You and Sirius both. You deserve it, damn it!"

But Remus only shook his head. Another time, Harry thought, he might have smiled sadly. "They're not. I'm a dark creature, and my mother was a muggle. For all we fought to change in the war, those two things will always matter more than any good I've done. At least they will here."

Harry caught his arm before he could turn away. "But I don't want to lose you, Remus," he whispered, not knowing what else to say, how else to beg for this last almost-father not to leave him.

Remus slid his fingers over Harry's, pressed them gently before dislodging them. "Then you'd better let me take myself somewhere I don't feel so trapped, Harry," he said, "because this place is becoming my Azkaban, and these bloody English are my Dementors, and if you ask me to stay here for you, then I will try, but God help me, Sirius Black would seem sane by comparison."

Harry had never heard Remus Lupin's voice shake with emotion before. He'd never seen those calm eyes sharpen under bitter, angry tears. He'd never been shown just how ready the Wolf inside the Man was to chew off its own paw in order to escape the trap. He drew a shaky breath, then turned his hand in Remus' grip to lace their fingers together. "All right," he sighed. "All right, I understand. I don't like it, but I guess I don't have a choice, do I?"

"You do," Remus said, pulling Harry into a hug. "But I'd prefer you choose to come and visit me wherever I go, rather than for you to be angry about me leaving a place where no one save you wants me to stay."

"Yeah, all right," Harry sniffed, but only a little bit. "But I'll miss you, Remus."

"Not so much as all that," the old professor smiled, leading Harry toward the table where an electric tea kettle steamed and two chipped china teacups awaited them. "You'll still have Ron, and you'll have Hermione, and all your other friends won't you? You'll be all right without one worn-down old werewolf underfoot."

Unconvinced, Harry let the protest go. He didn't want his last hours with Remus in England to be wasted on a fight. "I suppose," he shrugged. "So where do you think you might go?"


	5. Something I Can Never Have

~* June 30th, 2002 *~

_Take yourself in hand and stroke. That's right. Feel the blood against your fingers, throbbing so hard through that fat vein that runs from bollocks to foreskin? Feel the need that makes your palm itch, and your cock weep? That's right. That's good._

_Close your eyes against the long afternoon light, and think of his mouth; lips softly, damply stretched to take you in. No sneer, no smirk, no sleek oily words you can't ever fully trust, no insults he'll claim later not to have meant. Not really, and you never could take a joke, could you, only he did mean them, and…_

_No, don't think about that. Think about him sucking you. Think how wet, and how hot his mouth was, how tight the back of his throat, where the arch of his tongue pressed you so snug against his soft palate. Think, maybe, of the bright flush across his cheekbones -- yes, while he would make those soft, hungry noises so deep in his throat. A glitter, perhaps, of silvery eye. Just a glance while he's sucking you, and rub your thumb over the head. Just. So._

_A glance. A glitter. Not that smug, waiting stare when he'd sink deep (so deep) into you. Just a glance; too quick to spot that coldness lurking behind his self-satisfaction. Not that long hesitation -- it wasn't courtesy, and you know that now, don't you? He wasn't waiting for you to get used to his cock while he watched your face in those long seconds before he'd smile and pound you into the mattress. No. He'd just been waiting to see if you'd figured out you were being screwed yet._

_Damn it. Quit!_

_Okay. Not Draco. Just… stroke. Good. Too dry… lick. Yeah. Better. Much better. Lick two fingers… suck them, deep and wet. Yeah. Cockhead oozing now, it knows what's coming. Even your bollocks pull up out of the way for you to reach behind them and… yeah…_

_Think about Ron's cock. That's safe enough. Just his cock, that thick, long prick, so heavy in your hand… Roll over, face down to the pillow, because he always took you that way. Bit of a stretch to reach everything, but Merlin, how good to remember the feel of that cock inside you! Remember the gulping noises he'd make when he'd come, those great big Keeper's hands on your hips, slamming you back, and back, and back again. And fist your own cock, because he never liked to touch yours, did he? Or suck it, and fuck, don't think about that!_

_Just pull… harder… God, the stretch is so good now… don't fuck it up, damn it! He isn't here to leave you hard-up this time… he's back there, stroking over your prostate, just like Fuckthat'sgood… He's fucking you like the very best time… Like the very last time before…_

_Don't you think about that night. Don't you think that! No!_

_All right, goddamn it, think about it then! Think about him bringing Hermione into your bed with you! Remember the way he looked at her FACE while he fucked her. Remember how he couldn't fucking look away, even when you fucked HIS arse for the first time ever. Remember how he'd never let you TOUCH him there when you were alone, but for HER, he let you do anything… so long as he could look at her while you did it. There, happy, now that you're fucking miserable?_

_You couldn't come that night, and you can't fucking come now either, can you, you utter berk! And now you're out of time, aren't you? Snape's expecting you in his workroom for the damned daily meeting in fifteen minutes, and you've got to shower first… or at least wash your hands well enough that he won't smell your afternoon wank all over you. So he won't fucking smirk at you, and NOT call you a pathetic loser, just because he knows you know he's thinking it._

_Pathetic loser._

_   
"Disengorgio"   
_

_Ow. Fucking Snape. Fuck if I'm bringing the booze tonight._

 

~*~

Six hours, one failed experiment, one lengthy clean up, an argument, a cold silence, and a neutral conversation by way of a peace offering later. Harry, standing at Snape's elbow to watch the man tinker with his brew, had an epiphany that burned away all traces of his lingering bad mood in a sudden, delighted flash.

They often played this pointless game of 'what if' when they ran out of things to say, but still had alcohol left to drink. When neither felt like admitting that he wasn't yet ready to face his silent rooms alone, one or the other of them would pose a question, so hypothetical as to be patently ridiculous, and they would proceed to chew the thing right to bits.

Harry enjoyed it as a means of understanding the actual man lurking behind Snape's practiced sneer, and he suspected that Snape participated for much the same reason. It helped one feel a bit more human to talk aloud about impossible things, and to know what someone else's impossibilities were. Usually they only played it when drunk, but Harry had tried it today in a desperate search for some topic of conversation which wouldn't set either of them off back into their earlier scrap.

He hadn't meant it to be anything but something to fill the time up till Snape finished brewing, and they could crack open the bottle on the fireside table. He certainly hadn't expected his question to yield something so wholly, and delightfully different to their common woolgathering. And he absolutely never thought Snape's answer could have such _potential!_

"You like Remus?" The words were out of Harry's mouth before he could stop them. "You're kidding!"

Snape's sidelong glare said that he was not, in fact, kidding. A faint flush spread across his cheeks as Harry broke into a grin. "Snape, that's aces! Who'd have thought it, you falling for a werewolf?"

Snape slammed his stirring rod onto the worktop and snarled, "If you intend to mock me over this confidence, Potter, then you may bloody well take yourself out of my rooms and not return!"

"Mock you?"

"Or perhaps you'd rather talk about your latest spectacular failure this afternoon?" Snape ground on. "Just how _did_ you manage to completely invert a cast-iron cauldron, and cover every surface in the entire room, yourself included, with quartz powder, Potter?"

Harry braced his hands on his hips. "Setback, not failure. It's different. Let's talk about you and Remus-"

"I had far rather talk about where you hid your so-called brain while you were bending over for Draco Malfoy, Potter." And yes, Snape's eyes were glittering, but somehow Harry didn't think it was malice this time. He braced himself all the same. "The man was founder of the Potter Stinks club, he stomped on your face, and did his level best to send your best friends to Azkaban, and you imagined that once he was in a pitiful position, he'd actually come to love you?"

"Ancient history, Snape," Harry refused to rise to the bait, knowing it for the diversion it was. "That ship's sunk with all hands on board, and only the iceberg's still afloat." Snape blinked, clearly not getting the reference, and Harry shook his head. Explaining the movie would only be another diversion from the important topic.

"Look, the point is, you don't have to be a defensive shit, Snape, because I'm not going to take the piss out of you. Not over this." Harry put up both hands, as though to deflect Snape's disbelieving glare. But he didn't stop grinning. "I really do think it's great. Bloody fantastic, even! Remus has been all alone since Tonks died, and you're -"

Snape rolled his eyes and stomped out the door without another word. But he went no farther than the supply cabinet, so Harry felt no reservation in following him.

"He's lonely too, you know," Harry said, taking the jar of gooey green stuff Snape thrust at him. "I'm sure Remus would-"

"Oh, be quiet, you idiot," Snape shoved past him and stormed back to his worktop. "I said if I positively HAD to choose a companion from amongst those already known to me, with whom to spend the rest of my life, it might as well be he as any other. I did _not_ say I fancied him."

"Of course you didn't," Harry said, following him. Given his rotten day thusfar, he found himself unaccountably charmed by the idea of homely old Snape having a fancy for the last surviving Marauder, and he didn't mind the man knowing it. "But you _do_ fancy him, I can tell. That's why you're still working on the Wolfsbane potion, isn't it? So you'll have something-"

"Something to offer him? Something that could make up for this?" A sharp gesture took in his lank hair and sneering face. "Or something to sweeten thirty years of habitual bile between us? Or perhaps something to make him forget that I killed-"

Harry reached across the table to lay a hand on Snape's. "He knows you didn't," he said, then shook his head. "I mean he knows _why_ you did. We all do." Snape stared for a moment, caught off guard by Harry's even tone. Then Harry gave a shrug. "You should. Talk to him, anyway. I think it's romantic as hell; two old veterans, school rivals, finally making it up once the war's passed for good."

Snape gave a derisive snort. "Gryffindor."

"Hey," Harry laughed, taking up the abandoned stirring rod. "someone has to be the idealist around here, or we'd all do nothing but hide in our respective dungeons and brew smelly potions until we all died, bitter old virgins, wouldn't we?"

Harry recoiled at Severus' poisonous glare. "What?" But the glower only intensified till Harry imagined he could feel his hair beginning to smoulder. "Oh, come off it. You're not."

Snape extinguished the flame with a savage slash of his wand, and said nothing. But his cheeks were stained with a thin line of angry pink as he slammed the cauldron down into its cooling stand and whirled away.

"You can't be," Harry insisted. "You're nearly-"

"I AM WELL AWARE OF MY AGE, POTTER!" Snape roared at last.

"But I don't understand how you could be," Harry went on, still stunned, "I mean with being a Death Eater and everything."

"Oh, sweet Merlin's arse!" Snape said into his hand, "Where the devil did the Wizarding world get that stupid bloody idea? The Death Eaters were a terrorist organization, Potter, not a bloody dating pool! There were no Dark Revels, no virgin sacrifices, and no bloody orgies!"

"But-"

"BUT WHAT?"

"But…" Harry waved his hand vaguely in the air. "Never?"

"Potter." Snape loomed over Harry, looking as though he'd give up a large chunk of his soul for the right to give Harry detention with the Giant Squid over this. "I did not 'give it up' for the Dark Lord, nor for any of his followers, nor for any of the sneering, smirking, immature brats with whom I went to school. No sweaty fumbles in the Quidditch locker room. No silencing spells on the dormitory curtains. No midnight jaunts to the Room of Requirement, and yes, even MY class knew where it was and what it was good for. No weekend trips to Hogsmeade. No lover's trysts in the Forbidden Forest. I am as I was made. Unknown to man or woman. Now do you understand me?"

Harry stared up into that flushed, angry face, and nodded. "I really don't."

Snape made a disgusted noise and began clearing his worktop at a furious pace.

"No, Snape, I really, really don't," Harry persisted, coming round the table. "I mean sure, you're a cruel bastard, but so's Malfoy -- both Malfoys, actually -- and _they_ had no trouble getting laid as often as they wanted. And yeah, you're kind of-"

"Call me ugly, Potter, and-"

Harry put up his hands. "Well, Greg Goyle's no Adonis, you know, but he still pulls the birds. _And_ he's dumb as a box of hammers to boot. At least you don't smell like rancid custard. And you've got that deep voice and the brains to use it. Didn't anyone ever tell you that smart is sexy?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell YOU that, contrary to the works of that idiot Sir Ian Fleming, spies who sleep around during wartime have a tendency to get killed?" Snape banged a flask onto the worktop so hard it should have shattered. "Besides. I'm not interested in 'pulling the birds,' as you so charmingly put it."

"Oh, like I'd forget you're gay, seeing as how we wind up talking about blokes after every meeting! 'On the whole," Harry made a decent imitation of Snape's voice, complete with slightly drunken burr, "I prefer the company of my own kind.'" And he was sure he saw the corner of Snape's frown twitch upward at his jibe, too.

Harry laughed, and let his own grin out. "Of course, when you said you were gay, I didn't know you meant only in theory-"

"Oh, for-" Snape threw the newly filled flask at Harry's head.

Laughing, Harry snatched it from the air and pocketed it. "Course, a life-long case of the blue balls _could_ explain why you're always such a-"

"GET OUT OF MY WORKROOM, YOU INFERNAL, HORMONAL, GIBBERING IDIOT," the Potions Master bellowed, "OR SO HELP ME, I'LL-"  
Harry ran for it, but he didn't stop laughing.

~*~

 

_"Wotcher, Wilf."_

_"Wotcher."_

_"Looks like Our Daisy's out after winning the pool tonight, donnit?"_

_"Feh. So she's snogged him once. It don't mean nothin'. Not with Himself, it don't."_

_"Ye'r daft, you are! That one en't so much as made sheep's eyes at bloke nor bird in nigh on six months. Hardly been seen with his foot on the bar anywhere in Hogsmeade at all in the last four. A snog's as good as a weddin' band if y'ask me!"_

_"Well, I en't askin ye. And he didn't much look as though he fancied it anyhow. Not as I could blame him. Like a squid with tits, on a green-eyed whale, that was. Horrid sight for a sober man."_

_"Hah! Like you wouldn't fancy a willing lapful of that snogging on you, you old fraud! You're just sore because you've laid scrip on Smith taking it, that's all!"_

_"Och, I am not."_

_"Och, y'are so! I heard ye lay a fiver down on Zacharias Smith soon's you heard he wouldn't be tending bar here at the Broomsticks no more. And I coulda told ye it were money wasted. No way Potter'll so much as meet Smith's eyes, after that 'exclusive' Smith sold to Witch Weekly, just afore they split last time. You saw the story, din't ye? 'Potter Squeeze Tells All!' weren't it? Cor, and he weren't arf narked when he saw that, ye remember? We was all in when he came down the pub to dump him, and there you went, layin' money on his ickle blond head!"_

_"Psht. Babe in th' woods, ye are, Seth. En't you never heard of queerin' the odds? Booking Roger heard Smith's bragging to Daisy's face that Potter'd never look at her twice, and the daft bugger believed it. So I set a little cash down to help him set his numbers. Now see, the bulk of my money's on another blond head entire -- Oi! Watch the door, ye berk!"_

_"Excuse me. I didn't realize you… gentlemen were standing so close to the stall."_

_"Och. Er…"_

_"Well."_

_"Do you mind? I'd like to wash my hands before I leave."_

_"No, sorry Mr. Potter. We didn't know you was-"_

_"Och, quitcher simpering, Seth. Potter's a sporting man. He understands a bit of harmless fun when he comes acrosst it. And he'd surely not begrudge a couple of old timers a little inside-"_

_"Yes, actually, I would. Excuse me."_

_*SLAM*_

_"Well."_

_"Well indeed. Bit harsh, if y'ask me."_

_"Squeamish, is what. Och, and there he goes, right out the floo."_

_"Tsk. Well. I s'pose that's Daisy out of the pool then, innit?"_

 

~*~

When Snape opened the door, his expression was coldly neutral. Calm. Dignified. Unassailable. Everything one was meant to be in the face of petty little emotional bullies. Harry had to wonder if he'd practiced the expression in the mantelpiece mirror before coming to answer his knock.

"Potter," he began.

"I know."

"I take it you've returned to grind more-"

"I know."

"What the devil is it you think you know, Potter?" Snape's mask cracked at last, showing a glimmer of the anger and hurt that Harry knew had to be lurking under it. "And what makes you think I want to-"

"Look, I know, all right?" Harry put up his hand, palm first in obvious surrender. "I know you're still mad, and I know you're not going to forgive me for at least a couple of days, and I know I'm being selfish by coming here and asking you to listen to my apology just because I want to make one, but please," Harry stared at Snape's tight-pressed lips, the memory of too many _legilimency_ attacks making him shy away from the man's eyes. "Please just let me say this. Let me say this, and I'll leave, and you can go on being pissed at me until you're ready to not be, and I won't even bother you, if you'll just-"

"Oh, for pity's sake," Snape growled, "if you're going to apologize, then quit groveling and get on with it!"

Harry blinked, knocked quite off the lines he'd rehearsed on the not-so-sober, but very angry walk back from Hogsmeade. Then he held up his Peace Offering, and managed a lopsided smile. "I brought whiskey…"

"And you think I want to drink with you after you-"

"No, no," Harry thrust the bottle at Snape's chest, "It's for _you._ I don't need any. More. Tonight." He shook his head, and took a deep breath to begin again. "It's yours. A gift. That's all."

At last Snape took the bottle from his hands, turned it to the light. If he noticed that the seals were intact, he made no comment, merely tucked the amber glass under his arm and looked at Harry expectantly. Right then.

"I shouldn't have laughed at what you told me," Harry began, promising himself silently that he'd do this, at least, correctly. "I knew it when I made the joke, and I'm sorry I did. Truly." He noticed Snape's lip twisting, and hastily shook his head. "No, I'm not sorry just because you're mad at me, either. It's…"

With another sigh, Harry leaned against the doorframe. "You're right, is all. About love, I mean. Everybody says it's meant to be this brilliant thing -- that it's meant to be pure and wonderful, and all you need, and stronger than Death, and all those stupid things they write in the songs." The ghostly taste of his liquor and kisses he'd imbibed earlier returned to him, far more bitter in retrospect. Harry swallowed against it, and shook his head. "But then they turn around and treat it like some great bloody game." If Harry couldn't keep the disgust from colouring his voice, at least he liked to tell himself he managed to conceal the self-pity reasonably well.

Snape, meanwhile, was silent again, and his face was back to that marble indifference which had first peered through the door.

"It's horrible. Love's horrible. And you," Harry swallowed, and nodded at the tall, dark man still blocking the doorway with arms braced across his skinny chest, "you worked that out without having to get burned by it. You're so clever… even with the utter bollocks of school, and after, the Death Eaters, the wars…" Harry waved a hand vaguely. "Well, of course you'd never want anyone to have that kind of power over you. I can understand it." Harry dared a look at Snape's eyes, found them shuttered, impassive, locked up tight as his supplies cupboard. Damn.

And figuring that was that, Harry shrugged and dug his hands into his pockets. "So… I just wanted to say that. I guess I'll let you get back to-"

"And so after all that," Snape's voice, though thick with scorn, was oddly gentle, "you intend to just walk away?"

Harry blinked. "But I thought -- That is, you didn't -- don't you _want_ me to leave?"

"That depends," Snape said, the tilt of his chin an open dare.

"On?"

"Was the intent of your apology to gain my forgiveness, or did you just want an audience for your guilt?"

Harry blinked again while that sank in. Then he felt the beginning of a smile creep across his face. "I didn't know you _did_ forgiveness," he said, then as Snape's glare sharpened, he put up both hands and added hastily, "but that's what I want, if it's on offer. Can I come in please?"

Snape thought for a moment, then huffed a shrug and whirled away from the threshold. "I suppose you had better, seeing as how this is not a topic I intend to discuss in the hallway," he said, striding to the fireside chairs without a backward glance. Harry closed the door behind him.

"Love is horrible, you say?" Snape fired, setting the whiskey bottle on the side table and looking pointedly between Harry and the second chair until Harry got the hint and took his seat. "I find that assertion dubious, given the number of otherwise sensible people who seem to be obsessed with it."

"Well…" Harry ventured when Snape gave him an expectant look, "when it isn't horrible, it's pretty… well, really terrific. Only the terrific part doesn't ever seem to last, is all. Maybe that's just me though," he mused as Snape accio'd a second glass to the table, and it landed with a thunk beside the half-full one already there. "I'm probably just crap at it, just like Potions."

Snape made a rude noise and broke the seal on the bottle. "If you are comparing the two, Potter, I should say your problem lies not in a lack of native skill, but rather in your impatience with the preliminaries, your inattention to detail, and your unwillingness to listen to instruction."

For a hot moment, it was on Harry's tongue to turn that unfairness around, and blame Snape's teaching problems over his own learning for the fault. But then he remembered the point he had been trying to make, and slumped away from the retort.

Snape smirked as though he'd read every thought. "How many lovers have you had since the War ended, Potter?" Harry scowled, but Snape went on without waiting for a tally, "And how many of those did you bother to get to know properly before you handed your heart over to them?"

"Well, I _thought_ I knew them all," Harry couldn't help sounding a bit waspish at that. But at Snape's expectant look, he gave up a sigh. "I guess the only one I really… I thought one was my friend, and I could trust him not to…"

"Weasley." Snape didn't make it a question, so Harry didn't feel the need to respond. But he did feel the need for a healthy slug of the whiskey that was sitting at his elbow. Snape nodded, looking oddly reflective as he mused, "There _is_ something comforting in the idea of sharing one's life with a childhood friend. A sense of eternal youth, I suppose, to ward off the inevitable decay of time."

"Yeah, well. Still arsed it up completely." Harry slid down in the chair, glowering at the fire. "His eternal bloody youth wasn't what I wanted, but in the end it was what I got:  
a selfish little boy. And then I realized that I was probably not any better by the end of things. And I hate that more than anything."

"And so your error was in not seeing the warning signs and extricating yourself sooner?" Snape prodded, eyes oddly intent on Harry's face.

"Sooner. Like after that first kiss. It was horrible. Awkward, and he hated it, and I should have realized right then that he was only trying to…" Harry shook his head. "Why am I talking about Ron with you? I thought we were talking about how you were right not to mess around with love?"

Snape made a noncommittal noise into the depths of his glass and turned his black eyes to regard the flames for a long moment. "Perhaps. For a long time, celibacy and emotional detachment was the right choice for me…" he allowed after a moment, "But upon reflection, it occurs to me that your _earlier_ assertions might also not have been entirely unfounded."

Harry blinked.

Snape scowled. "That means I am admitting that you might be right, boy."

"You are? I might?"

"Try not to faint, Potter." Odd how Snape's smirk didn't make Harry angry anymore. "Statistically speaking, even you couldn't be wrong ALL the time."

"Ha-bloody-ha," Harry rolled his eyes and drank again. "So you'll actually give it a go with-"

"I did NOT say you were right about the bloody werewolf," Snape warned him right off the idea with a savage glare. "I merely mean that my self-imposed exile might have… possibly… been a detriment to my quality of… Potter, if you do not wipe that ridiculous expression off your face, I shall be forced to dash this whiskey over your head!"

"Sorry, sorry," Harry hid his grin in his glass. "Go on, please."

Snape heaved a great sigh, face twisted as though all the nastiest of his own potions were lingering in his throat as he admitted, "I merely mean that perhaps, now that my own life and the lives of so many others do not depend upon the secrets I protect, seeking a companion mightn't be such a bad thing…" he cut his eyes at Harry for a final warning glare, "_to consider._"

"Soooo," Harry did him the favour of not heeding the warning, "you won't _consider_ Remus a possibility for this because…?"

"Potter…"

"Oh, come on," Harry poured them both more whiskey, and only sloshed a little bit on the table. "Everyone in the Order knows what really happened, even those who couldn't see through your act while you were playing it-"

"Like you?"

"You were playing the act TO me, of course I couldn't see through it," Harry waved the interruption away impatiently. "Point is, Remus knows you were working for us all along. He knows you tried to save Tonks when she was captured. He knows you tried to warn Sirius against-"

"He knows I goaded Black into-"

"Snape, he's lonely," Harry cut in, steering clear of the topic that still made his throat ache, even after all these years. "Remus is alone out there in Italy. He hasn't got anyone, not even me in his life right now, and I know he isn't happy like that. And so why couldn't it be good for both of you to give it a try? I mean since neither one of you is young and stupid, like-"

"Yes, well old age and treachery are hardly glowing recommendations for romance either," Snape cut him off. Another gulp emptied his glass, and Harry realized suddenly that he must have been drinking before Harry returned, because surely the flush across the high, pale ridge of the man's cheekbones couldn't be from just two whiskies. "Anyway," Snape interrupted his reverie. "I could hardly approach someone who's known me that long."

"But why not," Harry asked, hastily emptying his own glass and holding it out to be refilled. "I'd think it'd be easier with someone who knows what you're like to begin with… no, I don't mean like that, but at least Remus knows what he'd be getting into, right? As much as anyone would, I mean."

"I doubt that."

Waiting in silence seemed the only safe answer to that. After several moments, it was met with an exasperated sigh. "Because, Potter," Snape's voice promised a dire end, should Harry laugh, "while fumbling ignorance may be charming in a teenager, in a fourty-five year old man, it could be nothing short of pathetic."

"But-"

"AND I would rather continue to confide in the bloody Golden Boy of Gryffindor for the rest of my life and keep the company of my own left hand than to suffer being laughed out of bed by Remus-bloody-Lupin for incompetence!" Snape tossed back his drink, and slammed the glass onto the side table by way of emphatic punctuation.

Harry thought it would be wise to hold his tongue. Which made it such a surprise to hear, as though from a distance, his own voice saying, "Well, I could always teach you what to do."

Snape's face went pale, and Harry was pretty sure his own did too, though for quite a different reason. If he hadn't had a glass in his hand, Harry would have slapped it over his own mouth as Snape erupted from his armchair in a towering black fury.

"DON'T YOU DARE MOCK ME YOU-"

"I wasn't! Snape, I swear, I didn't mean to-" Harry flinched as Snape's glass exploded against the stone fireplace. A few inches higher, and it would have taken the mirror with it.

"YOU COME IN HERE UNDER PRETENCE OF APOLOGY, AND-"

"I'm sorry, okay?" Harry struggled out of his chair. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean any-"

"I MIGHT HAVE KNOWN THIS WAS NOTHING BUT SOME JUVENILE, SADISTIC GAME TO YOU!" Snape swept aside Harry's attempt to lay calming hands on him, and shoved Harry roughly. "I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT, DO YOU HEAR ME?" he roared, storming to the door and throwing it wide with a bang.

"SNAPE!" Harry bellowed at last. The man stopped on the threshold, one hand on the door, the other on the sill, but he didn't turn. "These are _your_ rooms," Harry told him carefully. Snape swayed a little bit, but didn't turn. "And you don't have to stomp off anyhow," Harry added, "because I wasn't teasing you. I meant that. Seriously I did."

Didn't he? Harry supposed he must have done, given how hard his heart was thundering along in his chest as he watched Snape's head turn by reluctant degrees. Good lord, he had meant it, hadn't he? Because there was his cock twitching against his thigh as Snape's suspicious glare swept into view.

"Why?"

Why indeed? Harry decided he was too drunk to examine that question in any depth, at least as it might relate to himself, anyhow. So he equivocated, catching up the remaining glass and the whiskey bottle, and drifting across the room to lean on the edge of Snape's desk. That put him within reach of Snape, but not close enough to be threatening, he hoped.

"I'd just like to see someone wind up with a happy ending, I guess," Harry said as Snape pulled the door closed with exaggerated care. "I know you've always thought I was a fool for my idealism, but it's important to me, I suppose. I need to believe that love can work for _someone,_ even if it isn't ever going to work for me."

"And because of that, you imagine I should trust you?"

Harry couldn't blame him for that sneer. Not really, he couldn't. "Well, it's not like we wouldn't be using each other equally," he offered, filling the glass, then setting the bottle on the desk behind him. "Actually, I think it might be a bit easier, knowing just where we stand with each other; two gay, lonely washouts who are helping each other out a bit, that's all. So there's nothing to lie about, is there?"

Snape's eyebrow rose. He did not look convinced, but he did settle himself against the other end of the desk, and he did reach over to pluck the glass from Harry's hand. And he didn't shout, so Harry chose to take that for tacit acceptance.

"Besides," Harry said, reaching back to claim the whiskey bottle for himself, "I'm a Gryffindor idiot and you're a Slytherin spy-master. You can't really think I'd be clever enough to out-guile you."

"You are a wily, willful Gryffindor who is quite accustomed to writing his own rules, and who was very nearly a Slytherin to begin with," Snape pointed out.

"Oi," Harry cried, "how would you know what? Nobody knows that!" Snape's smile turned smug, and Harry shook his head. "Oh no, don't you go all Dumbledore on me. You must have got that from an _occlumency_ lesson or something!"

Snape hummed into his glass, making a show of searching his memories before he shook his head. "No, all I particularly recall from that delightful trawl through your childhood's most exemplary moments was that kissing seemed rather…" his thin lips twisted into a moue of distaste, "wet."

Cho. Oh Merlin! Harry took a pull straight from the bottle before turning with a glare. "No, you did not see that! You never saw that, you fraud, and no, I do NOT kiss wet. Wetly. With... wetness." He set the bottle down with a bang and a slosh. "I don't!"

"Difficult to disprove it now, don't you think, Potter?" Snape smirked. "Especially when you've just admitted that that there is, in fact, a reason why I should distinctly remember you involved in an extremely soggy sort of kiss --"

Later, Harry would wonder if it hadn't been bottle courage. Or possibly just Gryffindor pride and recklessness. Or a secret death wish. Whatever the cause, something in that moment brought Harry lunging around to pin Snape to the desk and slam their lips together.

Snape went rigid with alarm, his lips pressing thin, his neck craning back against the hold Harry had on him, whiskey breath whistling fast and frightened through the vault of that big nose. Terrified. He felt terrified. The glass smashed on the floor. Harry felt Snape's fingers close like iron claws over his arms.

He pulled back, but only a little -- only far enough to look up into those still-shocked, half-furious eyes and offer a hesitant smile. "No, you're doing it wrong," he murmured.

"Potter, what-"

He stilled Snape's words with a finger laid gently against his lips. Taut and tight-pressed, they gradually softened as Harry traced the sweeping lines. Colour blushed in as Snape gradually stopped clamping his lips bloodless -- not pink, but duskier, earthier, more _real._ The skin… Harry had almost thought it would be rough; chapped, or bitten as his own lips so often were, but it slid smoothly under his coaxing fingertip, dragging just the slightest bit as Snape parted his lips to draw a shaking breath.

"Good," Harry crooned, trying distractedly to recall what that texture reminded him of, "That's…" he leaned close, sliding one hand back around to the back of Snape's neck as he stood up on his toes and… Oh.

Oh, that was _so_ much better. Even Snape's death grip on his arms couldn't overshadow the feeling of those agile, strong lips yielding under his own, pressing, sliding, and _opening_ to him -- slow, so achingly slow. Harry slipped his tongue just the slightest bit inside, felt Snape quiver under his hands, and had to swallow a groan as he pulled away.

Snape's eyes were closed tight, rigid contrast to his lax, glistening mouth. His tongue crept out while Harry watched, whispered over his bottom lip as though in patent disbelief before retreating again. The man drew a great breath, and released it with a shuddering sigh. Harry found himself harder than he could recall having been in a very long time, as though the frustrating tease in the Three Broomsticks, and his abortive wank earlier in the day had joined forces to ambush his unsuspecting libido all at once.

"All right?" Harry managed to ask as those black eyes cracked open at last.

"Do…" Snape swallowed against a creak in his voice, and tried again. "Do that again."

Suppressing a grin, Harry did. Once, twice, thrice, each time shifting position and angle, each time ending the kiss with a deeper taste of Snape's mouth. Velvet. The texture reminded him of velvet, soaked and hot and oh dear God! Snape's tongue pressed back against his own, slithering firm and solid into his mouth and it was suddenly so, so, so good. Harry slid his arms around Snape's chest without another thought, pulling the wiry body tight against him, and wantonly groaning his pleasure. Fuck reserve, this was brilliant!

A moment later, Snape's hands answered, fisting Harry's jumper into knots over his shoulder and waist. Harry couldn't help gasping as the pressure snugged his erection tight against the unyielding heat of Snape's own body -- nor was he the only one. The noise that vibrated against his tongue as he plundered Snape's mouth hovered somewhere between a whimper and a growl. Harry drank it greedily down.

He wasn't going to last. His cock was throbbing in agony against his leg, and the crease of his trousers was pinching horribly, and he didn't dare try to shift it, for fear he'd come before he got his flies down. God, had it been so long that just a kiss and a grope could bring him right to the edge? Harry broke away with a gasp, but found he wanted air rather less than another taste of…

Snape craned his head back, gasping himself, and Harry could not resist that pale, taut column of muscle and sinew. He ran his tongue deeply along the clavicle's sweep, and gently bit where the shirt collar curled away…

And suddenly his arms were once again full of rigid, trembling flesh. Only this time, the strangled noise Snape made didn't speak of fear… Oh, not in the least. It spoke of throbbing, shuddering release and slick heat bound up tight inside the clothes, of hunger and desperate amazement as his thin, taut body lunged after the pleasure and rutted against Harry as though he couldn't help himself, and _that_ was what toppled Harry over the edge of his own orgasm.

Later -- minutes, hours, who knew? Gasping breaths later, melting limbs tangled just enough to keep them both upright later, calming pulse and drying sweat later, Harry huffed a laugh. "Well hell," he said just before Snape could stiffen up again, "I guess that kiss was kind of wet, wasn't it?"

And unaccountably, Snape laughed back. "Rather," he said. The word rumbled across Harry's ear, making his just-sated cock twitch with aftershock.

"Well, I'd say I'm sorry, only I'm not, really. That was brilliant." He kissed the mark he'd left on Snape's neck, and was pleased to feel the man tremble again beneath him. "Don't you think?"

Snape's fingers smoothed long strokes down his back, once, twice. Then they pulled away, though Harry fancied they seemed reluctant. "I think it's time that presumptuous young Quidditch hooligans like yourself should be getting themselves home," Snape said, leaning back so that Harry had to either let him go, or else admit he was clinging.

And yes, it was a bit disappointing not to be asked to stay. But Harry shrugged that off determinedly. "All right," he said, tugging his jumper down to cover the stain that was beginning to soak through his trousers, "I'll see you tomorrow then. I've a couple variations I want to try on that matrix before I leave next week."

Snape rolled his eyes, and waved a hand at the door, which popped open in an unspoken command. A command which Harry followed willingly, although he took another kiss before he did.

Snape didn't really seem to mind.


	6. Principles of Lust

~* June 31, 2002 *~

_~~Dear Sir.~~_  
Bollocks. You had your tongue in his mouth, Harry, you can't call him 'Sir'!

_ ~~ Dear~~ _

Dear? Since when? How about…

_Snape, I know you must be…_

Oh, yeah. Tell him what to think. That'll go over well. Come on, Harry, you can do better than this!

_Snape, I thought I'd come by later today, and work on my matrix, if I won't be in your way… in the completely separate ROOM you've been letting me use so that my experiments don't mess up yours, and I'm also a complete, bumbling arse, in case you couldn't tell._

Bollocks.

It was just a bit of a snog, and a nice rubbing off, is all. It's not as if you proposed. And anyway, he's a bloke -- he won't be expecting flowers or anything. You're working together, no matter how much of a smashing kisser he turned out to be, so keep your head on straight, eh!

Merlin. Who'd have thought, though? Okay.

_Snape. Just a note to be sure you feel okay today. I know I said I'd come to work on the matrix today, but just send Hedwig back with a note if you'd rather I leave you alone with your hangover…because it's not like you'd have hangover remedy potions, or pepper-up potion about there, or know how to make them in your SLEEP or anything…_

Right. Forget about the note. Notes are a stupid idea anyhow. Just go talk to him, that's all. Not like he's Voldemort or anything…It's only Snape. Whom you snogged and frotted off on last night while you were both bloody drunk.

Bollocks.

He's going to kill me.

 

~* July 2, 2002 *~

Three days afterward, Severus was finally approaching a point where his stomach no longer clenched in sick anticipation every time Potter breezed into his workroom.

Three days later, it was once more becoming possible to look at the young man's grin without searching it for traces of scorn or mockery, without seeing the ghost of the father's sins in those smiling green eyes.

Three days later, with no repeat performances, no leering advances, no smug, amused looks, and not so much as an offer of a drink to lubricate a repeat encounter, and Severus was beginning to think, with some relief, that he might just have got clear of the whole, awkward mess.

Three days, while Potter hummed and tinkered and tried to pretend he wasn't blowing things up in Severus' second workroom -- as though silencing charms would really cover the matter when all the jars in the shelves against the shared wall would rattle at random intervals.

Three days while Severus wrestled with the damned wormwood variation, and wondered if the jars on Potter's side of the wall were rattling as well.

Three days of work that never quite took his mind off what he'd allowed to happen; of soft, strong lips that coaxed his defenses down and a tongue that stole his breath and restraint and dignity away with dizzying, insistent pressure.

Three nights of forcibly refusing to revisit the atrocious event in his dreams; a man his age, soiling his smallclothes like a green first year? Ridiculous. And if Potter had the grace not to laugh out loud over it, that didn't stop Severus knowing the brat was laughing all the same. His only comfort was a strong suspicion that Potter had gone home in just as sticky a state as Severus had done.

Still, it appeared the boy meant to cling to the illusion of normalcy with teeth and toenails. And really, as odd as this recent equilibrium between the two of them had been, it was a far cry better than the awful, nervy awkwardness which Severus had steeled himself to expect. He was willing to allow Potter's pleasant denial knowing it would mean a rescue of his own dignity.

What room for disappointment in that? Potter's offer was ridiculous. It would never have been tendered had Potter himself been slightly less drunk. Severus knew damned well the fool had to be regretting his temporary lapse of sanity now, and who could blame him? Severus' mirror made it plain what a farce it would be to consider the likes of _him_ as Afters to a beautiful (if shallow) creature like Draco Malfoy. Glasses notwithstanding, nobody had ever accused Potter of being _that_ blind!

No, it had all been a mistake -- one which Potter preferred to pretend hadn't happened. Well, that was fine and good with Severus as well. In another week Potter would take himself off to visit Lupin in Italy. By which time, Severus expected, the whole thing would matter as little to him as did the occasional wet dream. Cause for no more attention than a shower and a laundering spell.

And when Potter returned to Hogwarts, afterward, tanned and easy and aggravating, Severus fully well expected that they'd be back to arguing over shielding foci and crystal bloody matrices again, just as if it had never happened at all. The idea would never be spoken again, to the lasting relief of them both.

He was certain of it.

Severus' certainty evaporated abruptly at four o clock on the afternoon of the fourth day. Because on the fourth day, Potter breezed into his rooms and dropped a stack of magazines on top of the reference scroll he'd been carefully annotating.

"Blast it," Severus whisked his quill out of the way as the pile tilted, "If you've smeared my ink, Potter, I shall…" he sucked a sharp breath through his nose as the man (the extremely naked man!) with the Beater's bat on the cover of the top magazine tipped him a wink and a wave.

_Score!,_ the magazine proclaimed itself.

"I thought those might be a good place for us to start," Potter said.

Severus ignored him, gingerly sliding the top magazine aside to find that the next one, _Wandplay,_, had three young men on the cover; three rather fit and extremely flexible young men, who showed not the slightest inclination to either wink, or wave in Severus' direction. He slammed the first magazine down again and leapt to his feet.

"What the devil do you mean by this, Potter?" Severus hissed, feeling three days' delayed mortification come to a boil in his stomach all at once. "Is this your idea of-"

"Study aids," Potter replied, unfazed. The damned brat was actually unwrapping a chocolate frog instead of quivering in wholly justified terror. Severus was going to- "I thought it'd be easier to show you what you'd be in for than to tell, you know? Figured that since I'm the one doing the teaching this time, I'd give you a few examples to look over and explain things before expecting you to jump in and get it right first time."

Severus felt his blood pressure rise at the dig. "Your failures as a student are hardly-"

"Easy, Snape," Potter said, a long glance almost convincing him of sincerity behind it, "ancient history, that, and it won't help us here, will it?"

"I am unconvinced that anything is capable of that feat," Severus growled, pinching the bridge of his nose hard. "Potter, don't you think that, in the eleven years I was Head of Slytherin House, I might have encountered pornography before today?"

And surprisingly, the brat actually nodded. "Yes, of course you would have, but most of that would have been girly magazines, which wouldn't have interested you." He licked a smear of chocolate from the corner of his mouth, and Severus pointedly did not watch his tongue. "Now with Slytherins being so caught up in bloodlines the way they are, I'm thinking that the one or two gay magazines you _might_ have found would have been seen as a matter of life or death or disownment. You probably would have assigned the kids detentions very quietly, and let them destroy the evidence so their parents wouldn't find out. You would _not_ have confiscated them and looked through them on your own."

Which was pretty much true, though it galled Severus profoundly to have to admit it. Moreover, he could never have risked such things being found in his office by the house elves or his colleagues. Being a teacher and a suspected Death Eater was one thing, but a known shirt-lifter working at a boarding school was quite another. Not even Dumbledore would have been able to whitewash it. Not to mention that the Dark Lord would have killed him for attracting that sort of attention.

"So anyway, I thought I'd bring you some of my favorites," Potter went on smoothly, hiking a bag Severus hadn't noticed before higher onto his shoulder, and leafing halfway through the stack to select one of the magazines. "This one's pretty basic, so why don't you start there? Be careful with the centerfold though, it's sort of loose, and I don't want it to fall out. Oh, and on page 68 there's a great article about rimming too."

"Rimm-" Severus shook his head. "Never mind. Potter, you can't think I'm just going to forego an entire afternoon's work to sit here and let you watch me read this…" his lip curled while he waved his hand over the magazines and searched for a suitable word. _Score!_ man used a snitch to tickle his nipples, and distracted Severus utterly.

"Well no," Potter grinned, turning toward the second workroom, "exhibitionism's a bit advanced to begin with. Joke. Relax," Potter told him as Severus looked up with a glower. "Anyway, I've a new theory to test today, and-"

"Abandoning your ridiculous liquid matrix at last?" Severus asked, glad of the excuse to turn his back on the magazines, and more than ready to needle Potter for his presumption in foisting them on him.

"Oh not at all," Severus didn't like the challenging spark in Potter's eyes as he undid the flap to his bag, and revealed that the thing was full of glass shards, "I've just come up with a new liquid to test, is all." And with that, the aggravating brat swept away into his workroom and shut the door before Severus could even ask what the devil he was talking about.

And on his desk waited those damned rags. Severus turned with a glare, and considered lighting the whole pile on fire, until that blasted _Score!_ man flipped the Beater's bat over in his hand, and… oh.

Oh, surely not!

Severus sat down, snatched the magazine off the pile, and flipped it open, determined to get to the bottom of this improbable idea.

 

~*~

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the smartest of plans, to set up two dicey, volatile experiments, both of which would have split-second timing, and disastrous consequences if mishandled. Each of them deserved his full attention -- both the one seething in Harry's cauldron under mind-boggling temperature and pressure spells to make the glass hot enough to actually _flow,_ and the one engrossed in the letters section of _Swish and Flick,_ with an expression of rapt alarm on his sallow face. Either could explode if startled. Both had a delicate threshold where manipulation would be, if not precisely safe, then at least not suicidal.

And, as he watched the potion shimmer and roil with one eye, and the man fidget and blush with the other, Harry was beginning to realize that he didn't know which of them was going to reach the point of no return first. And of course, the biggest similarity between the two was that Harry had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and was approaching the matter in much the same way as he'd done the worst of Voldemort's traps: instinct crossed with ingenuity, luck, and logic, and stirred vigorously with the hope that, should anything blow, he'd get enough warning for a running start.

He cast a gentle, unfixed _Portus_ on the potion, stepping back as the spell shivered and crackled like lightning across the surface. He didn't see whether it dissipated, or sank into the potion though. Damn it.

On the other side of the bespelled, transparent workroom door, Severus turned his magazine sideways, then cocked his head in the opposite direction, peering carefully. Harry swallowed dryly as one long, stained hand disappeared beneath the desk, but it was only a brief adjustment, it seemed, and the hand reappeared a moment later. Harry breathed a sigh, somewhere between relief and regret.

No, it was relief. Totally relief. Snape would KILL him if Harry walked out while he was having a wank over that mind-blowing pictorial in the January issue of _Swish and Flick._ But Harry knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with the stubborn old prude if he didn't have Snape's repressed sexuality working on his side today. He'd just barely managed to get the bastard to so much as take a look at the porn, and Harry knew if he went back out there too soon, Snape would just cover his ruffled dignity by shoving the lot at Harry with a dismissive scowl, and telling him to piss off.

No, he needed the man just about ready to pop on his own, or he'd never get through that icy scorn Snape spent his life hiding behind. Judging by the pink flush staining those high, craggy cheeks, Snape wasn't going to hold out much longer. When had he unbuttoned his collar?

The potion burped, and Harry jumped like a scalded cat. "Shit, shit, shit," he yelped, scrambling to add the blackthorn blossoms and redcap's teeth before the next big, viscous bubble broke the surface. He barely made it, and in fact, had to jump back again, as a tiny fang ruptured the rising sphere with a splash. Breathing heavily, Harry wiped his sweating palm on his trouser leg, then shivered as the fabric pulled tight over his half-hard prick. God, he was going to have to get a break somewhere soon, or HE was going to bloody well explode!

Snape set the magazine down on the desk, actually reading now, not just looking at the photos. The beginning of the issue, where the fantasy letters were. Harry swallowed again, trying to remember if that issue was the one with the letter about the Glory Holes in. Soon... soon....

The potion turned blue, and began to swirl slowly to the right, as though stirred from within. Harry held his breath, clutching his wand so tightly that it shook in his hand. The strongest shielding spell he knew was gripped just as firmly in his mind -- because whether the thing blew, or boiled, he was going to need it. He whispered the spell just as another big, smooth sphere began to swell, just in the middle of that vortex. Did it shiver? He couldn't tell. Should he cast it again? Should he wait? Should he run for the other room and hope he made it in time?

"Come on..." he whispered to the bubble as it settled on the surface, held in the center of the cauldron by the potion's whirl, "Come on, baby... you can do it..." The liquid reflections ghosting across the sphere's surface slowed, hardened infinitesimally, and Harry held his breath. Would it work this time?

Snape fidgeted again, and this time the leg of his chair shrieked against the stone floor. Harry stole a glance, blinking to see that Snape had stripped down to his shirtsleeves, and unbuttoned his cuffs as well.

Then, with a musical chime, the ward bubble burst, and the fragments settled back down to float in a spiral across the potion's surface, like fallen leaves on a pond.

"FUCK!" For want of another target, Harry gave his stool a kick, sending it clattering against the far wall as another bubble rose in the potion, and steadfastly refused to act like anything other than a bubble.

"Potter?" Snape called. "What the devil are you doing to my workroom?"

"It's nothing," he called back, raking his fingers through his hair. "I tripped. Don't worry about it." Snape, half out of his chair already, scowled at the door. Harry's mouth went dry as he spotted the unmistakable curve of an erection bulging under the placket of his trousers.

He cast a glance at his potion, bubbling calmly to itself, just as though it weren't only slightly cooler and less pressurized than a volcano, then he looked back to Snape, who was even now looking consideringly toward the bathroom door. One pale hand curled loosely over his groin, as though not quite daring to press himself harder...

And Harry decided. He cast a stasis spell over his cauldron, bringing the heat and the pressure down, and locking a shielding spell down over the worktable. Snape would kill him if he knew Harry was walking away from an active potion, but Harry hadn't won at Quidditch all those years by ignoring his instincts when they said to make the grab, had he?

"Time to let that simmer for a bit," Harry said, breezing out of the workroom, and pretending not to notice how quickly Snape got himself back behind the shelter of his desk. "Where've you got up to then?" He leaned over the back of Snape's chair, and grinned at the page revealed. "Ahh, Jason. Nice, that one. I didn't know whether you'd go for the small, willowy types, or the bulky athletes. He's a nice in-between, and those blue eyes just grab you, don't they?"

"Do you _mind,_ Potter?" Snape flipped the magazine closed, his cheeks burning a furious scarlet as he half-turned in his chair.

"Actually, you might like this one of Patrick and... oh, what's his name..." Harry dug out another magazine. "Daniel, that's right." He dropped it open to a well-thumbed spot and slid it across the desk. "I am particularly fond of the arse on him," Harry grinned as the wizard in the picture twitched his buttocks at the compliment.

"Potter..." Snape's voice crackled with warning, and Harry abruptly turned, settled his hips against the desk beside the man's chair, and stared down at him, fully aware that the move put the bulge of his own cock unavoidably into Snape's view. Snape noticed that too, and the threat died on his lips.

Harry forced his face to remain still, his breathing calm and measured as he watched those black eyes trace his cock's swollen length down his thigh. His stare was almost a tangible thing -- so focused and fierce it could scorch, and Merlin, but it was hard not to shiver under the weight of it, but Harry didn't. No, with the same patience which had lured Nagini to her final doom, Harry waited in silence for those black eyes to drift upward to his face. And even then he didn't speak, though Snape's sharpening glare demanded. No, he waited, hardly breathing, until the bloodless press of those lips cracked.

"Potter, don't you dare-"

"Who would I tell, Snape," he asked quietly, feeling the surety settle around his chest like the slow burn of _Felix Felicis_ as the rage in Snape's eyes faded into something fleet and furtive. "A joke's no good without an audience, is it? A prank has to have someone to laugh. Who've I got to laugh at you with? Who do I spend my time with? Who do I talk to? Who do I drink with?"

Harry lay his hand on Snape's shoulder, casually, easily, as though he touched the man every day. Snape tracked the movement, and his muscle twitched under Harry's palm like the flank of a jumpy Hippogriff. Harry left it where it was; a dare, an invitation, a promise, a threat. "There's only you," he said. "So you're the only one who'll know what goes on in here, and you're the only one who'll care."

There was a flicker in Snape's gaze. Little more than an inward flinch, but Harry saw it, and Snape knew he did. He closed his eyes, drew a careful, steady breath. "I would know," he agreed, and his voice was tar and ashes. "And I would care."

"Then don't give me anything to laugh at."

Harry waited, counting heartbeats until he felt a softening shiver pass through the flesh beneath his palm. Snape's head tilted, a fraction of an inch's worth of surrender, and Harry let his triumphant smile out. "Come on now, Snape," he urged, giving the shoulder a squeeze as he drew his hand away. "It's just dirty pictures. Nothing to be scared of."

"Scared?" Snape's glare erupted again, as though relieved at the challenge.

Harry grinned to see it. "Yeah. Scared. Don't give me a reason to call you a cowar-" he gasped, and had to lock down a flinch as Snape's hand lashed out and clamped his prick to his thigh in a grip of iron.

"Call me that, Potter," the man said through his teeth as he shrieked his chair back from the desk, "and sex will be the last thing on your mind..."

Harry closed his eyes and didn't bother to suppress the lusty shiver that coursed through him. Snape's voice took on such a goddamned sexy tone when gravid with threat! "Then show me what you've got, why don't you," he dared, forcing himself to lean back over the desk, and somehow _not_ jut his hips up into that hand. It had been so damned _long_ since anyone had touched Harry, that even a harsh grope through his trousers was enough to have him weepingly hard.

"I thought you said voyeurism was too advanced," Snape said, looming close into Harry's vacated space in weighty parody of a thousand glaring matches that had gone before. His fingers traced the length of Harry's cock, and again, Harry didn't bother to suppress his reaction. Snape needed to see it, he realized, needed to see that fraying control didn't mean peril, that riding the pleasure didn't have to spell shame. Snape needed it. Harry needed it too.

"That was exhibitionism," Harry panted, "and you seem to be a rather advanced student, so...Hey!" Harry yelped as Snape abruptly yanked his zip down and popped the button on his jeans. He wasn't sure he was altogether ready to be pantsed by the Potions Master just yet, friendly wank or not! But Snape only answered his protest with a cool glare as he settled back into his chair and got started on his own buttons.

"I am a Slytherin, Potter." Snape's voice betrayed his nerves in the perfection of tone, and utterly polished inflection. Nobody was _that_ resonant while putting his hand into his pants, and Harry bloody well knew it. "I'm quite old enough to be your father, I have taught hooligans for nearly twenty years, and I am damn well NOT about to be the only man in this room with my trousers open!"

Confidence restored, Harry returned the man's polish with a wide grin. "And so I suppose that because I'm a Gryffindor, young enough to be your son, and have lived to see at least three ex-lovers and one perfect stranger offer tell-all exclusives about my supposed sexual prowess to the Daily Prophet, you expect me to drop trou first?" Snape only nodded, and Harry had to laugh.

"Fine, fine," he said, stretching his leg out to the left of Snape's chair, straddling the man's knees, and gratefully reaching down his left leg to release his cock from its overtight shroud of denim, "But you have to show me your favorite spread." Snape's eyebrow climbed a notch higher, and Harry rolled his eyes. "From the _magazines,_ you berk."

"Why should I?" Snape's gaze turned suspicious. "They're only photographs. One's much like another." His hand was still mostly covering his cock, holding it close against his belly, so that the flushed, purple glans barely peeked around the man's shirtsleeves. Even so, Harry was reasonably sure that the enticing dimensions he'd imagined from his earlier glimpse at Snape's tented trousers weren't far from the mark. So much for Draco's insistence that purebloods were bigger...

"Because," Harry regretfully dragged his attention back to the topic at hand, and his voice went a bit rough as he dragged his fingers along the bulging ridge of his own cock. "If I don't know what you like to see, then how I can guess what you'd like to do?"

"Potter, **I** cannot guess what I should like to do," the man snarled, following Harry's fingers with his eyes with a rapt, heavy attention that belied his aggravated tone.

If it had been anyone but Snape, Harry would have been begging for a touch, for a suck, for him to shove Harry down over the desk and bugger him soundly. If it had been anyone else in that chair, Harry would soon have been spraying come right across the magazines on the desk and not caring that he glued the pages together. But there was something fragile in Snape's gaze that gave Harry pause. Or maybe it was the way he sat in his chair, slouched and sprawling, but managing not to touch the foot Harry still braced on his armrest, nor even to glance at it. Or maybe it was the way his long, stained fingers carefully, artfully mirrored Harry's grip, as though daring him to criticize, or to laugh.

As if anyone would laugh at a cock like that one! It was longer than the average of what Harry had seen, between his lovers and his porn collection. Ron might have him in length by a little, but Snape's cock was _thick._ Ropy, and purple with blood, arcing up defiantly from Snape's open flies, with a promising curve to it that made Harry's insides twitch just to see it. For a moment, he positively _hated_ Remus for the possibility of having that cock on constant call.

Then he caught the nervy glance Snape flickered at his face, and remembered that having a great cock was one thing, but knowing what to do with it was another. _And teaching him that's your task, Harry, you lucky slob,_ he reminded himself privately.

"Well then, you'd better show me who you fancy, so I can help you find out," Harry said at last, pausing in his gentle wank to thumb the foreskin back from his slick, heated cockhead. "Now don't second guess it, just show me what's caught your eye, all right?" Snape's eyes narrowed in a glare that quite belied the needy twitch of his cock between his fingers. Harry watched, making himself meet that suspicious gaze, when what he really wanted to do was watch the pearly drop of precome swell in the slippery, winking eye of Snape's turgid prick.

Somehow though, he still managed to be caught off guard when Snape lunged from his chair, and reached around Harry's right hip. When his hair brushed Harry's cock as he snatched a magazine from the pile, Harry had to clamp his fingers down to stop himself coming right then.

"Him," Snape said, flipping the book open across Harry's leg.

Harry raised his eyebrow, glad of the distraction to let him catch his breath. "Really?" He turned his head, considering the dark-skinned man, "Well I can see why. Kind of looks a bit like Zabini around the mouth, doesn't he?"

"What?" Snape looked again, then turned another page. "I meant the one WITH him. The blond."

Oh. That blond. The one even Draco thought looked just like him... In the magazine Harry had almost gone home and burned after he'd caught the pair together. Ouch.

Harry felt Snape's eyes on him again, and dug out a smile, though even he could tell it was a bit too wistful. "I always liked him too. What do you-" he swallowed, tugged himself a bit harder, and tried again, "what do you like about him?"

Snape cocked his head, considering the photos. This time Harry let himself stare at the man's cock -- it was better than looking at the pages in his lap. "I like that he's slight, not too tall, and not too bulky," Snape said after a moment's study, "a Seeker's build. Very flexible."

Harry's throat was tight at the memory. Snape had to know what this was doing to him. He had to. "And his mouth is quite tolerable as well," Snape continued, and yes, Harry could see a sly upward twist to the corner of the bastard's lips as he traced the photo with one finger. "He seems to enjoy proving his oral talents. Strange that he seems to have no gag reflex though..."

And Harry could take no more. Not without shouting, or throwing something. Not without blowing the whole thing sky-high. Instead, he slung the magazine off his lap and sent it spinning to the floor.

"I take it you have completed your 'evaluation' then-" Snape began, not bothering to hide the smug curl of his voice.

"Oh, I know what you need, all right," Harry growled, but instead of giving the man a clout to the head, he leaned down to grab Snape's wrist in one hand and tug it out of his way.

Snape jumped and shivered when Harry's fingers wrapped around his cock, and his eyes were white-rimmed and wild as he hissed, "Potter, what the devil are you-"

"Call it a surprise exam," Harry braced his other foot on Snape's chair and leaned close, effectively cutting off any easy escape. If Snape wanted out now, he was going to have to say so. "Since you're clearly already so bored with the lesson, I figure it's time for a little extra credit." Harry wrapped both hands around that generous, turgid prick, and stroked, upward with the left, down to the dark-furred bollocks with the right. Snape clutched at Harry's thighs and trembled.

"An exam..." Snape's breath was a rumble in Harry's ear, and it went straight to his cock. Or maybe that was the weight of Snape's fingers, digging like claws into Harry's legs. Either way, he had to catch his breath as his cock thumped eagerly against his belly.

"Yeah," Harry said, swiping a thumb through the slick drizzle of precome, and loving how it made Snape shiver, "I assume you haven't forgotten how to kiss me...?"

He hadn't. Oh, Merlin, he hadn't at all, and like a truly gifted student, Snape carried the basics Harry had taught him to a new and dizzying level. He rose from the chair in a slow, steady push that was all thigh and back -- strength of a very promising nature, really. Harry almost forgot to keep his hands moving when Snape's long fingers wound tight into his hair to anchor his head for a deep plundering.

Oh, fucking brilliant, this was; hands full of cock, mouth full of tongue, brain full of pure, seething need, and lungs full of nothing, because he didn't even want to try and get away long enough to breathe. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd been this turned on. Even with nothing but his own shirt-hem touching his cock, he was just about wound up enough to come.

The urgent, greedy noises Snape was making in his throat, the catch and drag of those vicious teeth against his tongue and lips. The cock -- _God,_ the cock under his hands! -- ropy and steely, a twist of velvet sinew that all but burned his palms with friction and heat. Harry would have dropped from the desk and taken it into his mouth in a minute, if those hands hadn't kept him pinned in place, if that tongue hadn't kept twining with his own, if that lean, wiry body wasn't all but crushing him backward over the desk as it tightened... trembled...

Snape broke the kiss for one sob of precious air, his hips thrusting helplessly, his cock tightening even farther in Harry's grasp. The man's eyes were blazing, his lips moist and bruised and open as he gulped, his fists gripping Harry's temples so hard as to make him dizzy. "You-" he whispered, "I'm-"

"Yesssss," Harry's eyes fluttered, and he craned upward toward the ghost of that kiss once more.

With a ragged sound, Snape kissed him again. Kissed him, and came almost at once -- shaking hard against Harry's chest while that massive cock leapt and spurted heat all over his hands, his shirt, his belly, his fucking _chin,_ even. _God!_ Harry swallowed down Snape's hungry noises and somehow managed to keep both hands moving, milking the last shivering bursts out of the other man's orgasm instead of groping after his own like he desperately wanted to do.

For his part, Snape kept on kissing him, but distractedly now, softly, his rigid stance easing into weightless, boneless, post-orgasmic bliss, echoing shudders the only memory of his previous, awful tension. Damn him.

Then a fat glob of come slithered off Harry's shirt and landed with a plop directly on the head of Harry's cock, still hot, and thickly heavy as it slipped down toward his foreskin, and it was too. Fucking. Much! With a strangled cry, Harry overtook the gentling kiss, wrapped both hands around his own desperate flesh, and tugged an orgasm loose in three sharp tugs.

Snape steadied Harry's shoulders while he came -- not quite an embrace, but still an anchoring force while Harry surrendered to the roar of his much-needed release. Snape's hands didn't move until Harry stopped shaking, at which point, the man sagged backward into his own chair with a great, heaving sigh.

Harry offered agreement in a shaky laugh, then fished his wand out of his pocket to banish the copious mess from his shirtfront and trousers. He said the charm aloud, knowing Snape would have the thing memorized by the next time anything like this happened, but since he was about it anyhow, he cleaned up the man's streaked black robes with a languid flick.

The magazine, which had landed almost directly below them, and had therefore suffered quite a bit of spill-over, Harry left. He took a perversely private delight in the imminent ruin of that painful photo spread Snape had tormented him with.

"Right then," he said, setting his wand aside to tuck himself back into his pants and do up his zip, "any questions to review?"

Snape rolled his eyes, but couldn't entirely hide his just shagged grin under a sneer. "I _have_ wanked before this, Potter," he growled, doing up his own buttons.

"Then you'll know how to do me next time, won't you?" Harry cheeked, pushing his feet off the chair, and rolling upright into a stretch. His tailbone was sore from perching on the hard desk, so he stepped clear, then bent over and stretched for his toes.

Snape made a sound that could have been a laugh, then indulged in a stretch of his own, his long feet nudging the ruined magazine out of sight beneath the desk as he did. Harry kept his smile to himself. Then Snape grunted, and pulled his feet back under his chair. "Potter," he said in an odd sort of questioning growl, "What exactly were you doing in my workroom?"

_Wasting my time, apparently,_ Harry thought with a bitter twinge of regret. But rather than show the fact on his face, he just stretched farther, until his hamstrings burned. "Oh, you know. Looking for that elusive wardfocus material we keep on arguing about," he said to his knees, "Boiling glass and casting spells."

"And so that blue glow coming under the door is as you had expected?" Snape didn't sound convinced.

Harry whipped upright so fast he made himself dizzy. "You're having me on," he accused, glaring desperately at the sanguine man, keeping his back to the door where he knew he'd left his failed, inert, and utterly NON-glowing potion stewing. "Snape, if you're taking the piss..."

"And who," Snape asked with a smirk, "exactly, would I tell?"

Harry stared at him for three heartbeats, then he scrambled over the desk, and flung wide the workroom door... to find a constellation of perfect, glowing spheres crowding the air, bobbing and rustling against each other with gentle chiming noises as they rose, fell, and orbited each other.

As Harry stared in open mouthed wonder, a new ward bloomed from the nearly-empty cauldron, perched for a moment at the end of its thready umbilicus, and then pulled loose with a sound like a gentle kiss. He laughed aloud, delighted as it bobbed up to join the rest.

"Your desired result, I take it?" Snape asked as he came to lean in the doorway.

Harry nodded, still grinning as he inspected the cauldron. It was beginning to deform under the heat and pressure spells, and he made a mental note to look into the possibilities of using a stone cauldron the next time he tried it. "Yeah. Finally!"

Snape made a rude noise. "A room full of glass bubbles... I feel safer already. Wasn't it you who was complaining about rock crystal being too fragile?"

"Rock crystal _is_ too fragile, because it has no give, no flow. But just try and break one of _these!_" Harry dared.

"The devil I will," Snape replied, crossing his arms over his chest. "YOU enchanted them, YOU test them."

And of course Harry was just giddy enough to do so. A lightweight stinging hex -- something that would have shattered a window or a goblet at once. But his chosen victim drank it in, changed its colour, and then lashed the hex back at Harry in the form of pure force.

Harry was still whooping in delight when Snape picked him up off the floor.


	7. Make You Believe

~* July 6th 2002 *~

When the flames turned green, Severus knelt and stuck his head through the floo, shouting, "Potter! Damn you, wretch, you had better not have left already!"

"Snape?" Potter appeared in the bedroom door, looking rather more rumpled than usual. Severus wondered with a sneer if the boy hadn't slept in his clothes. "No, I haven't left yet. I was just packing my trunk now, in fact. Why, what's the problem?"

"The problem," Severus sneered, clambering through the floo without waiting for further permission, "aside from the fact that you've left your pornography collection as well as these damned spell bubbles bouncing all over my workroom without so much as a containment spell," and here he paused to sling the magazine they'd been considering two days before onto the side table, "is that you owe me a damned explanation!"

"Explanation of _what_?" Potter said, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he braced his hands on his narrow hips, and positively did _not_ look at the magazine. "I said you could keep the books till I got back, and I closed all the bubbles up in the workroom, so if they got out, it's because _someone else_ opened the door!" Potter raked a hand through his hair, making the black scruff stand even higher as he squinted at the mantel clock. Its hand pointed to 'rushing', Severus noted without sympathy, which probably meant that Potter had left his packing till the last minute. "And I don't see why either one of those things brings you to my lounge at this hour of the morning," he finished, turning to fling a pair of socks back through the bedroom door, "before I have even had breakfast-"

_Ping!_

Both men jumped as the house elf appeared in a sparkling tower of knit hats. The creature beamed at them, staggering under an enormous tray of tea things, pastries, and covered dishes. "Dobby brings you breakfasts, Harry Potter and Professor Sna-"

"Dobby, damn it," Potter ripped his glasses from his face to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Will you PLEASE quit blinking in here EVERY TIME I BLOODY WELL MENTION FOOD?"

"He's a house elf, Potter," Severus replied coldly, "it's what he DOES!" He shouldered past Potter and bent to take the tray from the whimpering elf. "Thank you," he said to it dismissively, "that will be all now."

"Here now," Potter cried as Dobby shot him a watery glance, then pinged out of sight again, "just where do you get off sending my bloody house elf away?"

Severus turned and slammed the tray onto Potter's kitchen table so hard that the crockery jumped and flatware jangled. "I didn't care to watch you harry the poor bastard into torturing itself in front of me," he sneered, surveying the meal before taking a currant scone. "If you want to take your bad mood out on your house elf, Potter, then at least have the decency not to torment it in company. Even Lucius Malfoy had more grace than that!"

The dense quality of the answering silence told Severus he'd scored a hit, but it wasn't until he looked up from pouring his cup of tea and got a look at Potter's face that he realized how good his aim had been. The boy's skin was chalky, grey around the lips as his eyes, the only spots of colour in his face, fixed on the last place the elf had stood, haunted as though his own ghost confronted him there.

"I don't ask him for things," Potter murmured. "I don't exploit him. He doesn't even have to stay here at all, he just-"

"Sweet Salazaar, don't tell me I need to explain the concept of loyalty to you!" Snape cried, earning himself a black glare. Damn it. What was it about the brat that always seemed to turn even the simplest conversation onto its ear? He'd come with a simple question, a simple request, and if Severus let the twit sink into his impending sulk neither would be addressed before Potter went away for his fortnight with Lupin. Damn it!

Severus poured a second cup of tea, and slid it loudly across the table. "An elf cannot help his nature, Potter," he said, gentling his tone by way of a peace offering. "Nor his desire to please. If you give him no way to make you happy except through his absence, then of course he will go to excess." Severus broke off a corner of his scone and uncovered the butter, pretending Potter wasn't standing across the table from him looking as though he'd been smacked in the back of the head with a large fish. "Let him pack you a lunch to take along when you leave," he suggested finally. "That should be apology enough."

"So I should apologize by making him work?" Potter sat, bemused now, rather than spellshocked, and dragged his tea within reach. Severus assumed the bowl of porridge was for him, since all the elves knew Severus couldn't abide the stuff, and slid it off the tray toward the brat.

"It's what he wanted to begin with." Severus pointedly did not watch Potter make his bowl of lumpy glue even less appetizing by dumping butter in, then drizzling treacle over the top. "Why should it not benefit you as well? Even I allowed Granger to show off in class every once in a while, if you'll recall." Chiefly when the blank stares and smoking cauldrons proved that not a single other child in the room had a clue, but still, Severus had his point. To his surprise, Potter nodded to concede it.

"Yeah. I guess we all want to feel useful, don't we..." he mused, eyes turned toward the congealing mess that was meant to be his breakfast, though Severus could see that their focus was years away. Wonderful. Sulking despite his best efforts.

Then Severus recalled the date, and suddenly it all became clear; Potter's temper, his sleepless state, his clear intent to torment his breakfast rather than eat it. The fact that despite his questionable triumph over his liquid matrix theory (which Severus still doubted could possibly include glass) he had not appeared at the workrooms at all yesterday. It even explained the whiskey bottle standing empty on the floor, just by Potter's fireside chair.

July fifth. The day Nymphadora Tonks had been captured for the last time. Caught out by Death Eaters, just within sight of Grimmauld Place, she had let herself be taken rather than give Potter, Granger, and Weasley the chance to break cover and come to her aid. And in the end, despite all that the Order, and Severus himself could do, it had cost her life. Damn it.

Severus chewed down the last of his scone, and took another to buy time, and consider his strategy.

"Well," he said at length, brushing crumbs from his fingers, "if it's a means to being useful you're seeking, then you might just as well pack this along into your trunk." He fished a silver flask out of his cloak pocket, and set it just by Potter's hand with a clack. Potter looked at him, all eyebrow, and Severus shrugged.

"It's for Lupin; a more concentrated, and longer-storing variation of the Wolfsbane potion. It should achieve in a one-teaspoon dose what used to take an entire goblet. What's in that flask ought to last him till Halloween, if stored in a cool place." And here, he really couldn't resist a triumphant smirk. "Besides -- I shall need him to tell me if I've managed to make it taste reasonably like chocolate. Since you've a portkey to his home in Italy already enchanted, you might just as well spare an owl the trip."

Yes, that did the trick. Potter's eyes lit up in delight as he hefted the flask into his palm. "You made it taste like chocolate," he crowed. "Snape, you utter _romantic!_ He'll love it!"

"Hmph," Severus coughed, "Well, I doubt he could hate the flavour of the original potion more than he used to, so at very least it will be an improvement. You'll be there when he takes the first dose, so you can tell me what he says about it when you return." He slid a fold of parchment across the table, then took another scone before Potter's fingers could brush against his own. "The dosage instructions are clear enough, I daresay. Even you ought to be able to follow them."

Potter flipped the parchment over, frowning at it. "Snape, are you sure you don't want to write him an actual note or something to go with this? I mean you've gone to a lot of trouble here, and-"

"And Remus Lupin will not need a declaration from me to realize that fact," he snapped, embarrassed as always at the possibility of gratitude. "He knows I've no skill at treacle and sentiment. I'll neither insult him, nor embarrass myself by attempting it."

"You don't need to write him a bloody love letter, Snape," Potter laughed and at last actually put a spoonful of his porridge into his mouth. "But, you know, a letter. Something about how you're doing these days, what you're up to-"

"All of which he will know from you, if he gives a damn."

"Or asking how HE'S doing," Potter went on. "Because it's one thing to ask me for a report when I get back, but it'd be nice to ask him directly, don't you think? People like it when you take an interest in their lives, in case you didn't know." Severus offered a dubious glower, and Potter grinned in reply. "Come on; my portkey's untimed, so I can even help you write it before I go."

Severus made a rude noise into his teacup.

"What? You don't think I'd piss you about with this, do you?" Potter was all wounded innocence, and Severus couldn't help rolling his eyes. He could tell the wretch had the idea like a bit in his teeth, and it was going to take something drastic to distract him from the foolish and uncomfortable plan. "I thought I was meant to be helping you out here," Potter said, finishing his oatmeal and dropping his spoon back into his gluey bowl.

"Indeed," Severus braced his arms over his chest and offered a glower, "and that's why you neglected to tender a _full_ explanation of Thursday's events?"

"What, you mean the...?" Potter's loosely curled fist bobbed above the table edge by way of illustration. "I didn't think... I mean you did say you'd..." Severus glared, taking a secret delight in the way Potter's face went slowly red. "What about all that cack about you 'keeping the company of your own left hand', and 'I _have_ wanked before this, Potter' then?" the brat managed at last.

"Potter, given that the extent of my sexual experience prior to your advances _had been_ my own left hand, you have no call to act surprised that I have spotted your duplicity. Not," Severus held up a palm as Potter's brow darkened at his phrasing, "that I blame you entirely -- given the extent of _your_ sexual experience."

Potter stared, outrage warring with amusement on his face, and the mix of the two was, Severus realized, the only reassurance he would possibly have taken for proof that the whole thing still wasn't a joke.

"I don't know whether to be more pissed that you're calling me a slag, or implying that I lied to you," the boy finally grumbled, splashing milk into his teacup and stirring angrily. "It was just a wank, Snape. And you enjoyed it as much as I did, so what's with all this aggro now?"

"My point, Potter, is that was in no way 'just a wank'. I am familiar with 'just a wank', and _that_ experience was nothing of the kind."

"What are you talking about?" Potter shifted uncomfortably on his stool, and Severus had to force himself not to glance at the taut-pulled denim over his crotch as he did so. "I mean, hands, cock, sliding about -- what else is there to it?"

"How should I know?" Severus cried, banging a hand on the table. "Some sort of... sensitizing potion on your hands, perhaps. Or some... intensifying effect in the fumes from your damned bubble charm potion." He managed to quell the shiver that ghosted up his spine at the memory of Potter's hands on him, at the ghostly taste of that desperate kiss as he'd turned himself out all over those rough, strong, wicked fingers. Just a wank, indeed!

And now Potter really _was_ laughing at him. Severus felt his temper rising, building like steam under a cauldron lid as Potter's quiet trembling turned into a chuckle. And then from a chuckle, to a whimpering sort of helpless giggle as he peeled off his glasses with one hand to cover his face with the other.

"Stop laughing at me," Severus made his voice low, black, and dangerous, but the brat was too far gone into his joke. Potter merely shook his head, black fringe falling all about his fingers as he knuckled hard into his scalp. "Stop it!" Severus stood, rounding the table in three angry strides, and seized Potter by his rumpled shirtfront.

"Sor-" the brat gulped as Severus shook him, "Sorry, sorry. Not laughing."

"The devil you aren't!" His cheeks were wet, but damn him, he was still grinning, his normally soft lips pulled tight around an awkward rictus. Severus jerked him to his feet, but Potter staggered into him, and oddly... didn't move back again.

"Not at you," Potter pressed his forehead into Severus' shoulder, breath a humid puff across his knuckles. Wary of this reaction, Severus waited, leaning into the brat's weight. At last Potter gave a great sigh and was still. "Are you ever going to expect anything but the very worst from me?" he asked in a weary voice.

Severus drew a breath, slow and sore through his tense back and shoulders. Potter's eiderdown hair drifted ticklingly against his nose. "I do not know," he admitted, "are you?"

"I don't-" Potter pulled back, but swallowed his protest once he got a look at Severus' face. "All right, sometimes I do. But when you don't act that way, I don't goad you into it." Severus waited. "Usually."

Triumphant, Severus smirked. Potter, however, was plucking restlessly at the hands fisted in his shirt, and so the expression was wasted. "Look, I'm not really done packing yet, and I still have to get cleaned up before I can go," the brat said, "So, are you going to be letting me go soon, or should I just leave you here with my shirt?"

"And on the subject of you not goading me," Severus replied, pushing Potter back onto his stool without loosing his hold, "Will you be explaining the discrepancy I had been trying to ask you about, or did you mean to leave me wondering about it for the next fortnight while you frolic with werewolves?"

"Frolic," Harry snorted. His hands came to rest over Severus, but gently this time, not prising. "And I can't answer your question until you actually _ask_ one, you know." The look he gave Severus was challenging, yes, but laced with an edge of mirth, and a strong undercurrent of... something Severus wasn't used to looking for, but which his cock seemed to recognize. "What didn't you understand?"

He swallowed. "The experience with you was...more," he realized that he'd opened his fists completely under Potter's soft touch, and was now pressing palm-flat to the warm arc of his chest. Collarbones ridged solid under his fingers, and his right thumb softly grazed the swell of muscle next to the sternum, where the heartbeat echoed dimly beneath. "If it was nothing but a wank, then I ought to have been able to replicate the effects on my own-"

Potter was shaking his head. "It isn't a science," he said, easing his knees open around Severus' hips and drawing him close. "Every time's different. It isn't even the same way twice when you're with the same person."

Snape thought about that. "Too many variables," he decided, letting Potter's hands weigh his own down, sliding over the rumpled shirt and the lean, twisting muscle beneath it. "Hormonal responses, stimuli of... temperature, and ..." Potter's abdominal muscles twitched under his touch, and the boy sucked a breath as he leaned back on the table, openly inviting the caress. "...Pressure. Tension." He swallowed. "Humans are too unpredictable."

"That's what keeps it interesting," Potter allowed, rather breathlessly, his fingers making restless circles on the back of Severus' hands. "But... it's usually a fair bet that any experience with another person is going to be more intense-" a gasp cut off his explanation as Severus' hands slid over the plane of his hips, and down his thighs, not touching, but framing the urgent swelling under his flies. Severus considered the reaction, and decided he wanted to see the brat's impertinent mouth fallen so invitingly open more often.

"So, were I to take _you_ in hand right now..." Severus considered, returning one hand to the button at Potter's waistband, and smirking as Potter's gasp pulled the trembling flesh away from the fastening, "knowing only my own touch for guidance," he flipped the button loose, and sought the tab of the zip with gentle, teasing pressure on the tumescence below it, "it would be superior to your own touch?" Logically, he knew it couldn't be so. It was a ridiculous assertion. Potter had been pleasing himself for years, and must know his preferences for speed, pressure, and torque, where Severus would only be guessing, and probably guessing wrong, but...

But Potter's cheeks were flushed, and his eyes dark with what could only be called desire, and his lower lip was glistening, and bruised with the mark of his teeth, and by Merlin, he certainly _looked_ as undone as Severus recalled having felt under the brat's all-too-talented hands.

"Want to find out?" Potter dared breathlessly, shimmying on the stool to skim his trousers off. His pants followed, and Severus found himself confronted once more with Potter's prick. It was a very decent sort of prick -- the magazines had made comparison possible, and he had never been one to shirk his research -- not intimidatingly massive, but certainly long enough to require a good bit of elbow in the running of a hand from root to tip. An urgent, pinkish mauve, but with a deeper hue peeking from the foreskin as Severus' hand drew back down, thumbing hard into the standing vein and drawing a ragged sound from its owner.

Yes. That was a good look for Potter to have, Severus decided, glancing at the hooded eyes, the flushed cheeks, and gasping, welcoming mouth. Severus did it again, noting how Potter's hips lurched up needily at him, though the brat tried to stifle it. "D'you... want to-" Potter whimpered, and his fingers brushed Severus' trouser placket, and the erection beneath.

Severus slapped his hand away. "Stop trying to distract me," he ordered, twisting a gasp from Potter with wrist and thumb. With a whine in his throat, Potter took his hand away, but only to rest on Severus' hip as he drew a shuddering breath. Severus made him pay for his presumption, rolling the head of Potter's cock like a marble under his palm while he held it upright and still with his other hand. Then, slicked with Potter's precome, he groped low for the brat's all-too-famous bollocks.

"_Christ,_ Snape," Potter wheezed presently, fingers digging hard into his hips, "Just a ... little..." And then the bollocks, heavy and soft in Snape's palm drew up in a sudden shrug. Potter's cock ridged out hard and trembling in his fingers, and the brat made an obscenely hungry sound, somewhere between a hiss and a gurgle as he came all over Snape's hands.

Merlin. How could he look so hungry, and so fulfilled at once? The boy's head was thrown back, mouth stretched wide around a soundless shout, eyes barely a glimmer of rolled-back white under those sooty lashes. His hips rolled, thrust frantically into Severus' slickened grip, until he had nothing left to give, and collapsed backward on the table, leaving Severus' hips cold as his hands slipped away.

Severus shifted closer, keeping hold, but gentling his grip as the shudders snapped through Potter's body. He was breathing hard, Severus noticed, almost as hard as Potter himself was, and his cock... his cock was all but screaming for attention. He ignored it, as he usually did, and made to swipe a tickling hair away from his nose.

But the mess on his fingers stopped him; silky and gleaming in strands of marbled white. By sight, it would be perhaps disgusting, if he weren't a man well-used to having disgusting things on his fingers day in and day out. But the smell of it... that was another thing. It was redolent, musky and thick, as though clinging to the back of his tongue while he sniffed. He could smell the salt, and a curious, earthy element that was somewhere between wine and the wild black wood mushrooms he liked to gather in the Forest in spring. He took a deeper sniff, concentrating as the odour unrolled across his palate, but not missing the way his own cock lurched at the smell, as though hungry.

Well... why not?

Potter gave another helpless sort of whimper, and Severus ignored him in favour of tasting the pale webbing of spend the brat had left across his hand. The bitterness surprised him, but it yielded at once to more subtle, compelling flavours. He slid his finger deeper into his mouth, seeking out more, then another finger, following the glistening trail up over his knuckles, and down his thumb, brow furrowed in concentration. It didn't precisely defy analysis, that elusive taste of Potter's surrender, but it certainly mocked from afar.

Absorbed as he was, Severus barely noticed when Potter breathed a curse, lurched upright from the table, and bodily spun Severus around against it. He hit with a curse and a grunt, and Potter was on his knees at once, yanking at Severus' trouser buttons before he'd even caught his balance.

"What the devil-" he grunted, then yelped-groaned as Potter freed his erection, and _breathed_ across the tip.

"You are," Potter said, every word smearing the drizzle across Severus' glans, "the most incredible tease..." and he put out his tongue, and he _licked!_ Hot, and wet, and hard and slick, and right across the aching, purple head, and God, was it him that made that noise? "You've no fucking idea how sexy that is, do you?" Without waiting for an answer, Potter licked again, gently pulling back the foreskin with his fingers as his tongue slithered underneath it, and damn it to hell, it had to be him, because he made that noise again!

Unthinking, he grabbed for the tousled, black head with both hands -- to push him away, to yank him closer, to just bloody hang on as Potter's lips closed over him and sucked him deep. And it was everything he'd thought it might be, and it was _nothing_ he could ever have expected; a rush of sensation that swept all over his skin like a wave of fire. A pressure, and a suction, and such _heat,_ and those tiny, grunting noises Potter was making as his tongue -- oh dear God, his tongue didn't go that far back, did it? What was that pressure...

Then, with a great effort, Potter swallowed -- swallowed and then shoved his lips all the way down, chin pressed hard into Severus' bollocks, hair curling tight around his stretched lips.

Severus took a breath.

Potter's eyes flickered open, peered upward, locked on Severus' own. He bumped forward again, just a little more, and suddenly Severus came, bellowing wordlessly, turning his soul out into the brat's throat. Potter pulled back at once, reared back onto his heels, and held Severus' jerking cock at his open mouth, so the ropes of come slung across his reaching tongue, his lips, even his nose, and it was too much.

There was a creaking sound. A clatter, and a splash, and suddenly there was tea and pumpkin juice everywhere, and Severus absolutely could not care less.

He jerked Potter to his feet, and thrust his tongue between those open lips, licking, tasting his own spend without the slightest care for analysis. He only wanted Potter's lips, his tongue, and he didn't bloody well _care_ what was on them! And to judge by the starving noise Potter made in his throat, the clutch of his hands in Severus' sodden robes, and the urgent tangle he made of their tongues, Potter cared no more than he.

He pulled back, gulped a breath, and then yelped at the sudden, overwhelming squeeze of disapparation. Coming so close on the heels of his orgasm, it was nearly sensual, but alarming all the same. Especially when they emerged from the apparation quite literally in hot water.

A bathtub, to be exact, round and deep and full of steaming water that poured immediately into Severus' boots, and floated his and Potter's robes out around them like sodden black clouds. "WHAT IN SEVEN HELLS-" Severus jerked out of the brat's hold, boots slipping on the tiles. The edge of the tub stopped his stagger, but Potter was not so lucky.

It was a mild salve to Severus' ego to watch Potter tumble under the water. Still, if he indulged in the joy of watching the imbecile drown, Severus would never actually get his answers, so he snared a flailing hand to jerk Potter up to his knees.

"Make no attempt to convince me that it is common practice to interrupt post-coital endorphins with an unannounced disapparation and subsequent _ducking,_" he snarled, waiting until Potter stopped coughing, then shoving him under again. But only for a moment. "What the devil did you mean by it?"

Potter shook his head, coughing heartily and helplessly as he pointed to the right, where the oval shape of the room left a wide space for a bench and a press of towels. There was a thick rug there on the tiles, mossy in colour, and strangely elegant in the rustic design of the added bathing chamber. "Missed my mark," Potter finally managed to wheeze. "You were distracting me."

"So it's _my_ fault, is it?"

"That was a compliment, Snape," Potter's voice was low and ragged, though Severus didn't think he'd been choking all _that_ hard. "That was one hell of a kiss."

Oh. Well that was... different. Potter, however, hardly noticed Severus' discomfiture at the unexpected praise, because he was struggling out of his robes, and unbuttoning his shirt. "What are you-" Severus flinched when Potter slung the sodden garments up onto the tiles with a splash and slap, then bent to wrestle his trousers off. "Stop that!"

"Why?" Potter asked, sparing him only a glance. "I need to clean up properly before I leave -- I told you that. And thanks to your bit of wandless magic there when I was blowing you," was that a smirk? Damn the brat, it was a quick one, but Severus was certain he'd seen it! "-you need a bath as well. You don't want someone to see you walking back to the dungeons with pumpkin juice in your hair, do you?"

Well, of course he didn't. But still. Potter, however, merely slung his trousers, pants, and socks out of the bath in turn. And while the view was a good one -- Potter hadn't yet lost the taut, lean form his Quidditch years had given him -- it made Severus even less ready to be naked in front of him.

"Oh, come ON!" Potter cried, rolling his eyes. "I've just had your cock in my mouth, Snape, you've nothing to get missish about at this point."

"Fellatio... is one thing," he said, pressing back against the wall as Potter reached toward him, "but -- leave those alone! -- I do not -- I am unaccustomed to -- Potter, if you do not -- STOP pawing my buttons, you cretin!" He slapped the wretch's hands away, and at last was awarded a sober stare from those distracting green eyes.

"Snape, what's the matter? I know you used the dorm showers at Hogwarts when you were a boy, just like I did... oh." Severus' stomach twisted as he watched Potter guess the truth. He flinched as Potter laid a hand on his arm, but he only squeezed once. "It was that bad for you?" Severus looked away, and Potter took his answer from that. But, Merlin be thanked, he did at least back off.

"I'd like to see you," Potter said, swimming to the other side of the round pool and perching on the steps. "I'll need to see what you look like at some point, if we're going to continue this, but aside from that... well..." he shrugged, and those damned guileless eyes locked onto Severus'. "I'd just like to. Now. Please?"

Severus took a deep breath, feeling the wet, shrinking wool of his jacket and robes creak around his ribs, and the less comfortable sensation of his flaccid cock floating against the still-open placket of his trousers. He remembered the look on Potter's face two days back, when he'd dared "_Then don't give me anything to laugh at._" There was no such dare there now... but Severus knew it couldn't be far.

He could leave. He could just storm past Potter, spell the water from his clothes and the juice from his hair, and leave. Potter wouldn't come after him. The brat was naked, and across the room from his wand. He wouldn't.

Severus plucked his wand from his sleeve... and banished his clothes altogether.

He didn't close his eyes -- he had faced more humiliating things than one green-eyed brat's amusement. No, Severus watched that foggy gaze travel over his form, watched it note his standing ribs, the scar that ran from sternum to hip across his belly, the sharp poke of his elbows, the ridge of his hips. A mercy, at least, that the water shielded his awkward knees from view. Taken with the moment of humiliating exhibitionism, Severus turned, let his back into view, and waited.

Yes, Potter gasped. Not many wouldn't, on their first glimpse of that collection of scars. The water gurgled, a nearing trickle and splash. Trilling drops sketched a hand raised from the bath mere seconds before it touched, a smooth, gentle palm on his shoulders. Water dripped from the touch, streaming like hot tears down his back.

A wringing sound, chiming of water. Severus turned his head to see Potter raise a sponge from the bath -- Merlin knew where he'd got it from -- and stroke it along Severus' back in a long, hot swipe that made him shiver to his bones.

"You needn't-" he began, cutting off with a shiver when Potter soaked the sponge again and wet more of his skin, "Contrary to popular opinion, I _do_ know how to-"

"Shush," Potter replied. "This is part of the lesson."

"Bathing?"

"Touching." The sponge returned, this time laden with a thick, resinous lather that clung silkily to Severus' skin. Potter covered his back in long, sweeping strokes -- firm enough to stimulate the skin, but not quite a rough scrub. "Your lover will expect you to touch him," the brat said, a faint breathiness belying his casual tone, "because you like the feel of his skin under your hands, because you like the smell of him, not just because you intend to seduce him. Touching is important. It means you trust someone."

Potter nudged the sponge along one hip until Severus lifted his forearm out of the way. Then -- ohh, how sinful, the slick feeling of that lather pressed between his back and Potter's front! And how impossible the twitch in his groin as Potter's hands spread the soap across his chest and belly! For Merlin's sake, he'd only just come!

"This," Severus swallowed, "this is not intended to seduce?"

Potter's breath was a cool huff against his shoulder. "Well... it could be... but it doesn't have to, if you'd rather not." He dipped the sponge into the water, and his knuckles just grazed Severus' floating cock. Then he sluiced the soap away in a hot rush, and shrugged. "Trust, right? Goes both ways. You trust your lover to say when he wants you, and he trusts you to say if you're not there with him. And that if you say no, there'll be another time when you'll say yes." He dipped the sponge again, and this time the graze was not remotely accidental.

Severus caught his wrist, and took the sponge away. He could feel Potter's cock floating against the back of his thigh, rolling with the subtle movement of the water... or possibly Potter's own hips. "I see... and this manipulation of yours? How does that factor into the negotiations?"

Potter looked only a tiny bit chastened as he let Severus step away. "Just making my case, is all. You haven't said no yet, so..."

"Then if I say it, you stop touching me?"

Potter's eyes slid from Severus' face, to the sponge he was clenching in his fingers. The water from his dripping hair traced idle paths through the soap still clinging to the youth's chest as he considered. "I stop teasing you, yes. But if you don't want me to touch, then you'll have to say so."

Mystified, Severus shook his head. "But _why_?"

Potter grinned, and gave a one-shouldered shrug before _accio_-ing another sponge. "Because I like it. Because you're here, naked and kind of hot in my bathtub, because you still have pumpkin juice in your hair." He dipped the sponge, filled it with water, then caught his lower lip between his teeth for a second before asking, "So... are you going to tell me no?"

Severus rolled his eyes. "I am not so ignorant as to assume you'd wait for me to tell you yes..."

Potter's grin spread, and he reached up high, to wring out his sponge over Severus' head. "That'll do," he said as Severus sputtered.


	8. The Dispossessed

_To: Ronald Bilius Weasley  
The-cottage-which-used-to-be-a-cattleshed-in-The-Burrow's-back-garden,  
Otterey St. Catchpole, Cornwall._

_Mr. Weasley,_

_One hardly knows where to begin. The temptation to remark upon the irony of you writing to me and asking me to intercede with Harry Potter on your behalf is somewhere far beyond irony, and skirting the level of utter farce. (Ask your wife to explain those words later, Weasley, after you've finished reading my letter.)_

_You clearly know exactly where Mr. Potter is to be found these days, and since your elder, and only marginally more clever brother has seen fit to inform you of my working arrangement with Potter, I find it logical to further assume that also you know he is in fair health, not missing any limbs, and I daresay moderately happy, after the fashion of blissful ignorance. (A state which, I am certain, accounts for your own constant and rather vacant grin.)_

_If it is your intent to disrupt Potter's equilibrium in a self-centred bid for absolution, then I recommend you waste no more of my time, and write your missives directly to him. Or better yet, show your speckled face at his door, if you can make your way through his wards, and try your luck in person. In your case, I recommend beginning with a detailed and sincere apology, and carrying on through some measure of proof that you have managed to understand the reason why he has avoided your company this eighteen months, to finish with an oath to eat your newborn son before you will ever treat him so shabbily again._

_However, if your intent in contacting me was merely a hamfisted probe for information regarding Potter's social or sleeping habits, you may cheerfully bugger yourself with Supervisory Auror Moody's bloody peg leg. If you haven't the spine to look Potter in the eye, then you can bloody well keep your nose out of his life for all I care. He deserves better, which, from me, is no small admission._

_With utmost sincerity,  
Severus Snape._

_P.S. On the topic of your brother, since you and Charles are in such confidence with each other, I daresay you won't mind relaying a message to him from me: his latest dose of genital warts curing lotion will be a little behind schedule, owing to the wet summer and a late harvest of yarrow. He should treat the outbreak with a mild numbing agent if it troubles him before I have the potions finished._

~* August 3, 2002 *~

 

There is an unwritten rule, lodged like a cold, hard kernel deep in the workings of the Universe, which dictates that no matter the planning and care involved in international travel, the likelihood of delays, redirections, accidents, and airsickness will be in direct and proportional relation: The harder you try to plan for everything, the greater the odds that something will happen to screw the lot sideways. There is also an addendum to that rule which dictates that if the outgoing trip goes smoothly and well, the return trip will not.

Even the most powerful Wizard of his day, it seemed, was not exempt from the rule. Harry had slept through his portkey's return activation (hadn't actually known that a portkey _could_ be return-timed when it hadn't been timed to take him out in the first place,) and not even he was cocky enough to try a one-step apparation from Remus' villa on Lake Cosimo straight to the Highlands of Scotland. It would have to be floo, Harry decided after the Italian portkey authority told him how long their waiting list was.

And so it was that, seventeen hours late, tired and footsore, having tramped from floo terminal to floo terminal for most of a night while the Tyrolean network sputtered and collapsed at random intervals, fiercely sunburned, and in rather desperate want of a shower, a gigantic meal, and a good, stiff drink, Harry at last tumbled out of the floo in the Hog's Head Inn.

He didn't arse himself, but it was a near thing. Only the presence of a handily empty chair and his Seeker reflexes saved him from a headlong meeting with the rather grubby tavern floor. Harry groaned aloud as he felt the chair teeter, then right itself under his weight. He loved that chair just then. It was the very best chair ever made in the world, and he would have taken it home just so he could cherish it always, only that would have involved getting up _out_ of it first, and he wasn't quite sure he could manage that just yet.

"Potter, do you _mind_?" Pansy Parkinson hissed venomously from across the table, her dark eyes wide and furious, her skin milky and pale. A glass of white wine stood at her left hand, a nearly empty bottle beside her. The glass was spotless, he noticed with a dazed distraction, no sign of a lip-print on its sparkling rim. Pansy leaned across the table, and snapped her fingers twice under his nose to make Harry focus on her properly. Then she repeated her question in a single, arched eyebrow.

Bugger. He groaned and pulled himself upright. "Sorry Parkinson, didn't see you there," he offered, aware only as he said it, how rude that sounded. "Er... let me get you another drink, shall I? Aber-"

"Shut UP, you idiot!" she bit out, just above a whisper. Perplexed, he half-turned in his chair, catching just a glimpse of Blaise Zabini before she grabbed his hand and sank her claws in. "Do. NOT. Turn around, you idiot! Do you want them to see you?"

"I just want a drink is all," Harry murmured, fetching out his most innocent expression as he began to shake off the travel-fugue. "And since this _is_ a tavern, I thought you might want one as well. That's not such a strange idea now, is it?"

Unimpressed by his logic, Pansy made a thoroughly disgusted face, and did not release his hand. "Fine, I'll get your drink, Potter. Just sit still and keep your trap shut like a good little Gryffindor, all right?" She tapped her wand smartly on her cocktail napkin, and it folded itself up into a paper bird. "You still drink cheap Firewhiskey, I suppose."

Harry thought about pointing out that good little Gryffindors rarely sat still or kept their traps shut, but in the interest of not making his already no-good day the worse for a catfight with the leader of the Draco Malfoy psycho stalker club, he decided not to bother. Instead, he nodded, and focused his gaze on the picture above her head as the paper bird fluttered off to the bar. The picture itself was of some wizarding cattle faire, but far more interesting was the picture that was reflected in the glass.

If he leaned a little sideways, Harry could just make out Blaise's shirt collar -- starched and white against his dark skin as he tried to climb into the clothes of another man, of whom little more could be seen in the shadows under the staircase but a blonde smudge of hair and a pink cheek and jaw. The soft, heated noises they were making filled in everything the dimly reflecting glass left out.

Suddenly feeling much more charitable toward Parkinson, Harry sighed, and looked away. _Never Again._ He rubbed one gentle thumb over his tattoo, and told his stomach to stop twisting. It had nothing to do with him if Draco was still fucking Zabini. Shamelessly. Noisily. In public. Nothing to do with him at all.

"So then," he said to his companion, as though he hadn't noticed, "what brings you to the Hog's Head on a Thursday evening?"

"It's Friday." Pansy rolled her eyes at his attempted smalltalk, and released his hand at last. His skin burned and stung where her nails had dug in, four pale, angry crescents just behind his knuckles.

"So then, what brings you to the Hog's Head on a Friday evening?" Harry kept his tone cheerful and low, and was rewarded with a truly foul glare.

"I might better ask why _you're_ here, Potter," she replied as the whiskey glasses (two of them) arrived at the table. "You've not shown your face in Hogsmeade for nigh on six months, after all."

Harry blinked. "Six months? You're daft. I've only been away three weeks."

"And before then?" she smirked. "Because an attention whore like you simply _can't_ have been up at the school _every_ weekend since..." she made a sucking noise against her teeth, "since you aren't even listening to me in the first place... And _what_ is so fascinating out on the sidewalk, anyhow?"

"Is it raining? It sounds like it's raining..." Harry couldn't disguise the longing in his voice as he craned his head about to try and stare out the inn's tiny, grimy windows.

"Is it Scotland in the summer?" Pansy sneered quietly. "Of _course_ it's raining. Why do you look as though you've been cooked, Potter?"

He glanced down at his hands -- dirty and sun-scorched. "Because I have been." She looked at him, all eyebrow until he shrugged and explained. "Got stuck in Greece without any local money. Had to wait outside till the floo network came back on line again."

She snorted. "Gringotts has branches-"

"Hoped I wouldn't have to stay that long."

"And you were what, too brave for a sun-shield charm?" she carried on as though he'd never interrupted her.

He took a mouthful of his whiskey, and let it burn a comforting swath all the way down his throat before he shrugged again. "I was on the shadowed side of the building when I fell asleep. And yes, before you say it, I probably did look like a beggar sleeping in the street like that, and I was lucky nobody decided to try and rob me, but I got home, or nearly home, with nothing worse than a sunburn, so I'm not complaining." He took another drink, and eyed the petite brunette with a dawning curiousity. "So now that we've got the ritual Harry Potter scorning out of the way, care to tell me why you're here on your own of a Thursday-"

"Friday."

"Friday evening? I can't remember the last time I've seen Malfoy or Zabini allow anyone to linger at this corner table."

"And seeing as how you haven't stepped foot inside the Hog's Head since Draco threw you over for Zabini, you would know that how, exactly?" she smirked, and took a sip of her own whiskey, still ignoring the glass of wine at her elbow.

Harry wasn't impressed at her evasion, but he had a feeling he was going to be when she gave it up and started talking. "Come on Parkinson, if you looked any more pleased with yourself, I'd have to search you for feathers," Harry lured her out, counting on her Slytherin vanity to tip her over from quiet triumph into bragging. "So give over; why do you look as though you've just buried your favorite enemy?"

She gave a little hum, and tucked a curl behind her ear then. "Maybe I have done." He gave her a look, and she rolled her eyes. "Oh, not literally, you arse!"

"Well, I didn't _think_ you'd tell me if you'd actually killed someone," Harry finished his drink "but..." A silky chuckle, and a clatter of shoes behind him stilled Harry's tongue. Pansy's warning glare stopped him turning to see, but the reflection in the picture glass showed Zabini, shirt open and un-tucked, heading for the stairs, with... Harry blinked. With Zacharias Smith, flushed and mussed, and held firmly in tow.

He flickered a glance at the wineglass, then at the empty bottle, doing quick calculations in his head. Then, as the pair stumbled up the landing, grunting and snogging all the way, Harry lifted his tumbler to her in silent salute. "When's Draco due back then?" he asked her.

"Any time now," she allowed, and her glare turned sharp once more. "And if you're not gone before then, I'll tell him you were here mooning after his arse again, Potter."

_Never again._ Harry smirked, and shot the remains of his drink. "Never fear, Parkinson," he said as he stood with a creak and a grimace, "that's one arse I'll leave to you. I'm all done with him." And with that, he walked out, slapping a handful of coins on the bar as he left, and hoping against hope that they'd been sickles, not dinari. He didn't want Aberforth mad at him, after all.

In the street, he paused, pinched off his glasses, and turned his face upward to the soothing, cold kiss of the misting rain. Merlin, but it was good to be home again! Much as he'd missed Remus, nice as the sunny days and balmy nights in his villa on Lake Cosimo had been, the visit with the last Marauder had been anything but relaxing. Truth be told, they'd run out of news to catch up on in that first afternoon, and given that Remus wasn't any better at Quidditch than Harry was at chess, and that neither of them particularly fancied dredging up the ghosts of the Bad Old Times, that had left them precious little to talk about. Which, after the strange sort of sharp-edged rapport he'd fallen into with Snape over the past few months, Harry found himself at a loss to overcome.

They'd done all right for a while with stories about Harry's parents. Gone a little more carefully through the Marauders' school years, treading delicately around the ghosts of Sirius and Wormtail. Avoided entirely any mention of Harry's school years, and the friends from that time, beyond Remus' polite inquiry after their health, and Harry's admission to not having the first clue. Finally, Harry resorted to talking about work, and to his great relief, struck a common interest with his old teacher at last.

The problem of Hogwarts' disintegrating wards was something both of them could chew on safely, and chew on it they did. They spent evenings discussing theory -- a bit surreal to do so without a constant stream of snarking and insults, but still interesting -- debated (because it simply could not be called arguing) the usefulness of Harry's glass potion, and even agreed somewhat wistfully that they probably weren't going to find a way to make the wards allow teachers only to apparate inside the school. A thing Harry would sooner have chewed billywigs than admit to Snape.

But even so, as the three-week visit wound to an end, Harry was pretty sure Remus was as relieved to see him go as Harry was to be going. And now... he grinned upward into the mizzle, Merlin, but it was good to be home!

"Well, if it isn't my favorite bedraggled stray," a cool voice purred from behind him. "Come 'round to beg for scraps, have you, Potter?"

Then again...

"Malfoy," he sighed, running a hand through his wet hair, and feeling the frizz turn to curls around his fingers. His inked arm, long-healed, gave a throb as the grey-cloaked shape sidled a bit closer, bringing Draco's lush smirk into focus. Rain gathered like pearls in the delicate silver embroidery of his hood. "Still raiding your mum's closet, I see. Haven't worked out how to live within your own means instead of your father's, eh?" Harry put his glasses back on just in time to catch the flash of outraged fury his petty barb won from Draco's narrowed eyes.

But then Draco laughed, low and cruel as he stepped closer still. "Oh, I remember how you liked it when I _did_ dress up like a girl to fuck you, Potter."

And damn if Harry's cock didn't choose that moment to remind him of that very drunken episode. He scowled and hoped his sunburn would hide the rising flush, but Draco's curling smile told him it was probably no use.

"Was that what you came back here for?" Draco murmured, reaching to take hold of Harry's arm, "Did you want to see me in silk knickers and heels again? Put your head up under my skirt and suck my cock while I run my feet over you until you come all over my stockings?"

Christ. It had also, he realized with some chagrin, been three weeks since the last time he'd had it off with Snape. His cock, it seemed, had far less concern for Harry's self-respect than Harry himself did. It gave a painful throb as he stepped out of Malfoy's grasp with a casual shrug.

"No thanks, Malfoy," he said, plucking out his wand, "I'm not interested-"

But Draco lunged at him, caught his elbow like it was a snitch, and dug his long fingers in. "You lie like a Hufflepuff, Potter," he hissed. "You've been licking your wounded pride up at that school for months now. All alone, with nobody to drill that greedy arse of yours, and now you suddenly come sniffing around my haunts again looking bedraggled and pathetic? You're gagging for a piece, and you know it!"

That was all it took. Harry was actually a bit relieved as he twisted Draco's thumb back to a forcible release and stepped out of reach before the blond had finished yelping. "Not everything's about you, Malfoy," he said with a broad grin. "But hey -- you have yourself a nice day anyhow."

Malfoy was still snarling when he disapparated. Harry counted that as a solid victory.

 

~*~

His cottage took shape around him -- dark and cold for an instant, before the charms brought the lamps and the hearth fire to light -- and Harry let out his breath. He hadn't been quite certain it would work, going across Hogwarts' wardlines like that, but apparently whatever the flaw that allowed him to apparate within his own garden and cottage, it also seemed willing to allow him this timely escape.

With a grateful sigh, Harry collapsed backward into his favorite squashy armchair, winced as his trousers pinched, and then reached down to rearrange his burgeoning erection. Merlin, but Draco still got to him -- those pink lips, somehow lush even when sneering insults, so that Harry hardly knew whether he wanted more to kiss them, shove his cock between them, or bloody them with his fist.

Maybe all three. In no particular order.

He trailed his fingers along the ridge beneath his fly, toyed with the zipper for a moment -- as though he really had a choice. The beast was wakened now, and throbbing with hunger as the image of Draco, reeling back from a well-placed punch, played in Harry's mind. Well... nobody knew he was back home, so why not?

Harry popped his fly button, eased his zip down, and took himself in hand as he took the reins of his bloody little fantasy. Fingers winding hard into soft, pale hair, yanking Draco up to his knees, but no farther. Pinching that narrow, pointy nose shut until he opened his swollen, bloodied mouth to gasp, and then thrusting inside, _hard._ Harry groaned aloud, lay his head back, and pulled himself hard -- nothing gentle, nothing teasing, no slow build here. Just anger, desire, and very soon, release...

Then something tapped against his head.

Harry yelped, fantasy shattering as he opened his eyes to search for the intruder. But no... his wards were intact, and his cottage empty. Not even Dobby was there to interrupt the gentle tap of rain on the roof. He was alone. And his cock was impatient with his paranoia, throbbing with a primal ache in his fist. He gave it another stroke, and closed his eyes, meaning to recapture his fantasy for those final, crucial seconds...

And it happened again.

"The fuck?!" Harry bolted out of his chair, one hand covering himself while the other groped for his wand.

A glowing blue bubble wafted into view as he turned, wand in hand, and a curse on his lips. One of his creations, he realized. But he'd left all of those in Snape's rooms... how did this one get in here? He left his wand in his sleeve, remembering how the bubbles reacted to even the mildest spells. Maybe if he just ignored it... but then it dipped toward his head again, and Harry ducked.

"Oi! Piss off," he said, waving his free arm over his head. The bubble made a chiming sort of noise, feinted left, and dodged around his arm to slap him square in the forehead. It was all Seeker instinct from there. He snatched the bubble from the air. Then he yelped as he felt the instant, lurching tug of a portkey behind his navel.

He came down hard on his knees, rolled immediately over his left shoulder, and came up to his feet, wand in hand, and panting. He was in the spare lab. And he was surrounded by bobbing, sparkling blue globes, all of which seemed, in a strangely creepy way, to be watching him. Harry breathed out carefully, his erection fading, unsatisfied under his shielding hand. Then he whirled with a thin sort of squeak as the door bashed open, and Snape stuck his head through.

Silence, for a long, and profoundly mortifying moment, Snape's dark eyes taking in Harry's scarlet skin, opened trousers, and flagging erection before he straightened with a smirk. "Oh. It's you," he said. "Late, as usual." He twitched something wordless at the globes, which seemed to lose interest in Harry all at once, and began to drift about the room in random patterns, chiming gently whenever they brushed together.

"Floo breakdown," Harry said, turning to tuck himself back into his pants, "couldn't help it. What the hell did you do to my bobbles while I was gone?"

Snape's only reply was a deepening smugness to his sneer as he turned and strode from the room.

Harry ground his teeth. "Fine!" he called as he did up his flies, "but if you're going to go all coy over it, you damn well better feed me dinner while I talk it out of you!"

 

~*~

As it happened, the castle elves were only too happy to provide an early supper, and indulged both their creativity, and their generousity to ease the seduction along. It was the sticky toffee pudding, Harry supposed, that really did the trick. Who knew Snape had such a sweet tooth... or that he'd look so goddamned sexy licking the stuff off his spoon? Harry didn't even try to stop himself remembering that tongue as it had licked his spend off those nimble, wicked fingers, and his still-frustrated libido wasn't the least bit disappointed with the replacement of one lust-object for another somewhat less aggravating.

"Think of it as a pseudo-sentience," Snape admitted at last, summoning the bottle of brandy to the table.

"Pseudo..." Harry blinked, shifted to ease the pinch on his swelling cock, and then registered what Snape had actually said. He shook his head in disbelief. "But how could that be? They're just _glass._"

"So is a mirror," Snape replied with a triumphant gleam in his eye, poking his be-smirched pudding spoon at Harry. "How many times has _your_ looking glass told you to comb your bloody hair then, Potter?"

"Hmph. Probably as many times as yours has told you to wash it," Harry grumbled. "But I get your point," he added quickly as Snape's face clouded up. "I just don't see _how_ you managed it. I mean you couldn't have charmed each one, because they reflect magic, and I can't see you sitting down with each one of the bobbles for a nice heart to... er... globe."

"You really are still a nincompoop, aren't you Potter?" Snape asked after a significant, eyebrow-accented pause.

"Look," Harry sighed and put down his own spoon. "I'm tired, I'm floo-lagged, I feel like I've been run under a broiler for six hours, and Draco already met my daily quota of aggro, so you'll just-"

"And the fact that you have resumed your dalliance with the Brat Prince does nothing whatever to temper my opinion of your intelligence," Snape scowled, voice hard and sharp as he pushed his dish away in favor of a snifter of brandy.

"Hey," Harry protested, "I have not 'resumed my dalliance' with him! I kicked over a rock on my way back to Hogwarts, and the little bastard crawled out from under, is all!"

"Of course," Snape sneered, "that completely explains why your cock was out of your pants when the spell sphere brought you to the workroom today. I'll confess, I had wondered..."

Harry rolled his eyes, but didn't fail to notice how the sudden, fierce chill had begun to evaporate from Snape's voice. "Long bloody day," he said, pouring himself some of the brandy. "I just wanted to relax is all. Wank's a good way to do that... unless you get attack-portkeyed in the middle of it, that is."

The sneer turned to a smirk, and Harry just _knew_ he was about to hear something humiliating about the state of his erection when he arrived, or Gryffindors getting aroused from danger, or something equally argument-worthy, so he waved his hand through the coming insult, and forged ahead before Snape had finished choosing his words. "So instead, let's talk about you sublimating my bobbles with crazy dungeon logic, and convincing them to act like portkeys, shall we?"

"Crazy...?"

"Dungeon logic." Harry sipped, wincing as the brandy stung his chapped lips. "Figure of speech." The silence thickened, as did Snape's mostly-concealed amusement. Harry scratched idly at his neck, then yelped as his sunburn objected with a searing sting.

Snape gave a disgusted sigh. "And on the subject of logic, just how long did you intend to sit there radiating at me before asking for a simple burn salve, Potter?"

"Er..." Harry looked up hopefully. "I don't suppose you've got a burn sal-"

"Idiot." Snape stood, and summoned a squat, red jar. "Take off that shirt."

Harry did, mumbling curses as he got the stretchy collar tangled with his glasses. By the time he'd wrenched the lot off over his head, Snape was standing behind him, warming a gloss of the salve between his hands. He smeared the stuff across Harry's scorched neck, and it was all Harry could do to stop himself groaning aloud.

"Tell me, Potter," Snape's voice was amused and low as he worked the cool, tingling salve in. "Did Hagrid ever manage to teach you what a hive mind was?"

"Wha?" Harry let his head drop back, resting heavy and limp against Snape's body as those cool, slick, strong hands moved to his ears. There were buttons digging into his scalp, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care. "Oh. Er. You mean like with bees, right? Ants, and... mmm, s'nice stuff... redcaps?"

Snape's belly bounced in a silent laugh, and Harry almost smiled to feel it. But then that cool relief was stroking up over his forehead, and every single thought he'd ever had flew away under the touch. His cock gave a twitch against his thigh as Snape's voice rumbled, "Yes, Potter. Redcaps, hinkypunks, and house elves, as well as certain classes of insect, all operate under their own sort of hive mind. And apparently, it seems that bit of glass welded to the bottom of my spare number eight cauldron once you were through _making_ all those pestiferous spell spheres possesses something rather similar."

Harry cracked open one eye, perplexed. "So that blob of glass is what? The Queen bobble?"

Again, that brief tightening of mirth, jostling Harry's head as Snape re-slicked his fingers, and smeared the salve over Harry's crimson nose. "Think of it as the spell focus if it's less taxing, Potter."

"Spell focus..." Harry murmured to show he really was listening as he let his eye drop closed again. Snape's fingers were making tiny, slick circles against his cheeks and chin, leaving tingling swaths of relief behind their touch.

"Indeed," he said. "The glass remnant was the point of commonality between all the airborne components. It was the natural point at which to focus my spellwork."

"Mm hmm... spellwork," Harry agreed. That salve smelled so nice... like cream and vanilla, cardamom and lavender. And Snape's warmth beneath his head was so steady, so finally _real,_ after three weeks of proper distance, broken only by the occasional hug or shoulder pat. And Snape's voice... even that was comforting, stroking like velvet across Harry's ears as the cool fingers stroked his cheeks.

"And then once I sacrificed three virginal sixth form Gryffindors to it and bathed myself in their blood under the light of the full moon, those spell spheres of yours were ready to grant my every wish." Snape's fingers smoothed down Harry's throat, slick and cool across his collarbones. "Of course my first command was for world domination, followed by eternal life, but after that, I told them to bring me the head of one Harry James Potter."

"Mmm," Harry observed as those slick, clever fingers wandered down his naked chest. Then he yelped and jounced upright as those cruel, vicious fingers pinched his nipple, and gave it a savage twist.

"Yie!" He slapped a hand over his nipple. "Hey! You... What?"

"Well, they brought your head," Snape shrugged, plucking up Harry's shirt to wipe his hands, "but the wretched things brought the rest of you along as well. I suppose I shall have to be more particular with my orders in the future."

Harry blinked, then snickered aloud and took another drink. "You never did!"

"Did I not?" Snape deadpanned.

"Didn't. There hasn't been a virgin in Gryffindor fifth form since I was in school. You must have used Hufflepuffs."

"Don't be ridiculous, Potter," Snape replied, Harry's shirt in one hand, brandy snifter in the other as he swept off to the sitting room. The flare of his robes revealing the subtle tenting of his trouser placket as he went. "Everyone knows Hufflepuffs are easy."

"Bollocks, they are," Harry called, skidding his chair back and picking up his own snifter. Tired, toasted, half-hard, and comfortably tipsy, he wandered out into the other room to take up his end of the argument, and see what else might be in the offing. "Nobody outside the House _ever_ gets invited to their badger-pile parties!"

 

It was with mixed emotions, therefore, that he found himself waking up in Snape's quarters some fifteen hours later -- sprawled across an extremely comfortable sofa and wrapped up in a soft, fluffy blanket. His glasses, a bottle of pepper-up potion and a glass of water were waiting on a nearby table... and his clothing was wholly undisturbed.

He drank the water first, then the potion, allowing his ears to steam themselves out before he picked up the note and deciphered Snape's spidery scrawl.

_Go home, Potter, and get some proper sleep. You needn't bother me today, as I intend to spend it in bed myself. If you can possibly refrain from apparating about in any other weak spots on the school grounds, and attracting the attention of the spell spheres, then I daresay we shall both have a more restful time of it.  
S. Snape_

_PS. Your owl seems to have brought some of your mail to the second workroom. I've left it atop your copy of my working notes for the last fortnight. Do take it all with you when you go._

Grinning, Harry turned the note over, picked up one of the self-inking quills that Snape always left lying about the place, and scribbled a reply.

_It's Saturday, Snape. I wasn't planning on bothering you for work today anyhow, especially after you waited up for me yesterday. But if you want to have a look at the notes Remus and I made (and if you want to see what I brought back for you,) come down to the cottage this evening, and we'll have dinner.  
H.P._

"But if I have to watch you molesting your spoon over dessert again," Harry added to himself as he hunted his trainers out from under the sofa, "I will _not_ promise you'll get home with all your clothes intact..."

From beneath the bedroom door, a thready, rumbling snore was Snape's only reply.


	9. Stormy Monday Blues

_~~Remus Lupin, you utter wanker!~~  
Dear Remus._

_Ha ha, oh, it is to laugh. Snape hit the roof when I gave him that cologne you said was always your favorite. You MIGHT HAVE WARNED ME that Sirius used to wear that scent back when you were in school, since, you know, I WAS getting it for the bloke Sirius used to torment and all!_

_Now my cottage reeks of the stuff, and I've had to get rid of the rug he smashed the bottle on. AND he's not had a fucking civil word for me in three days, either, because he thinks I was mocking him. Not what I'd call a good impression to make on a bloke for his birthday, you know? Why the fuck would you-_

No, no, no. Misunderstanding. Maybe he didn't know. You can't send him that, Harry. Try it again.

_Dear Remus._

_Thanks for your advice on what to get Snape for his birthday. The cologne made quite an impression on him -- I don't think he was expecting it at all. Haven't told him it was your idea yet, but I'm sure he'll appreciate the sentiment behind it when I do.  
Cheers,  
Harry._

_PS ~~You're an utter wanker!~~_

~* August 10 *~

It was a bad start to a bad day.

Severus overslept, to begin with, which always made him sore and testy. This would have been bad enough, but the fact that he was facing yet another day of no potential progress on that damned warding problem Potter had been fighting him over for the past week and a half very nearly had Severus rolling over and pulling the blankets up over his head.

And he could get away with that, as well. Potter hadn't bothered to come down to the workrooms since Severus had turfed him out on his arse last Friday. (Arithmancy errors indeed! The presumptuous whelp!) There were no students about yet, most of the staff was still out holiday-making, and Merlin knew the Headmistress wouldn't be expecting anything from him on a Monday morning... But Severus only managed to lie still for a quarter hour before habit overruled despair, and dragged him from his bed at last. With a groan and a well-rounded curse, Severus pulled his clothes on, and summoned an elf to bring his breakfast.

Which the damned creature got wrong. Three one-minute eggs, instead of one three-minute egg, crumpets instead of muffins, not a scone in sight, and _cream_ for his tea instead of milk. Severus had taken milk in his tea each and every single time he'd drunk the stuff at Hogwarts! Even Albus knew to have a pot of milk on the tray whenever he'd invited Severus up to the office for one of his damned 'chats'! Cream, indeed!

Severus was just winding himself up to go down to the kitchens and address the matter when the wards chimed. An instant later, Potter flung the door to his chambers wide with a bang.

"I worked it out!" he shouted, eyes wild, hair a shocking pillow-twist, and clothing rumpled. Potter looked every inch the raving madman as he skidded to a halt beside Severus' breakfast table.

"I do not recall inviting you back to-" Severus began, as coldly as he could manage.

Potter, the rude little bastard, ran right over him. "The identification method, Snape," he said, as though Severus were the thick one here. "I've worked out how to centralize and direct the bobbles to-"

"Potter, **I** worked that out before you even deigned to drag your overly perfumed arse back from Italy!" Severus kicked his chair over and banged his spoon down onto the table. "But, as you've slept since then, allow me to remind you that the structural centrality of the spell spheres allows for the-"

"Snape!" Had Severus the benefit of even one proper cup of tea before the wretch had barged in, Potter would never have caught his jaw like that, Seeker reflexes or not! "You're not paying attention. We decided we couldn't use the bobbles as part of the castle wards because..."

"Because like you, the damned things have neither reasoning, intelligence, nor memory," Severus replied, swatting the fingers away from his face when really, he'd almost rather have just bit them until they bled. "The spell spheres can be directed through the glass remnant focus, but only for specific, time-limited tasks."

"Right, and we couldn't just appoint a security wizard because people are generally lying shits, and even those who aren't can still be fooled, or just make mistakes."

"Potter, if you came all the way down here and interrupted my breakfast just to-"

"You're not eating it anyway," Potter said, just as though that changed anything. Severus righted his chair, and pointedly stuffed a crumpet into his mouth as Potter tapped his twist of papers on the table like a makeshift gavel. "Now riddle me this, Batman: What's the one thing that every single Hogwarts graduate has in common?"

"Having gone to Hogwarts, you simpleton." Severus ignored the bat comment -- it's not like he hadn't heard worse from the twat, after all.

Somehow that only made Potter grin the harder. "AND, what is the first step involved in going to Hogwarts?"

Merlin, how he loathed crumpets. He dropped the thing on his plate and sneered. "I fail to see how the Hogwarts Express will-"

"No, no, no, you're missing the point!" Severus ducked back as Potter lunged forward, but instead of grabbing his face again, Potter only snatched the bitten crumpet for himself. "I'm thinking of someone who has met each and every Hogwarts Student, in the entire history of Hogwarts. Someone who saw clearly into their hearts and minds, their strengths, weaknesses, intentions, and potentials within just a few seconds of having met them. Someone who can't ever be bought, blackmailed, cast under _Imperio,_ bested with legilimency, or murdered. Someone whose devotion to Hogwarts is absolutely unshakeable."

"Ah yes," Severus nodded, pouring his tea. "It's clear now. I cannot think why I hadn't realized it earlier."

"Exactly!" Potter yelped, banging his open palm on the table so the tea things clattered. "I knew you'd get-"

"You're obviously drunk."

"What? No!"

"Because," Severus kicked over his chair and stood with a snarl, "if you were not either inebriated or suffering significant trauma to the cranium, you could not _possibly_ mean to suggest that we turn over the heart and soul of the school's protective magic to a magical _object_ which does not even have the benefit of such residual brains as even Gryffindors can claim!"

Potter blinked. "Wow. You made all that up just now?"

Severus sighed. It was either that, or groan. "I do not rehearse my insults, you idiot. They are inspired by the profound stupidity of humanity in general, and **you**, in specif-"

"I dare you to try it."

"I do not take dares from Gryffindors!" The words were out of his mouth without a second thought. Because, of course, he didn't. Only a fool would do that. "To try what, exactly?"

"Put it on, and see if you can lie to it." Potter's smirk was chilling. "You lied to Voldemort, who was widely known to be the best legilimens alive. You lied to the entire Wizarding world for the last few years of the war. If you can put one past the Sorting Hat, then I'll drop the subject of on-campus apparation forever."

Severus had, however, stopped really listening to him as the insane, ridiculous, thoroughly _Dumbledorean_ notion began to actually take on some weight in his mind. "It would require a holding cell for the spell spheres' detainees," he mused aloud. "Something secure, and yet not so far removed that legitimate visitors who happened not to be known to the Hat would be inconvenienced. Something magically null..."

"Room of Requirement," Potter's voice was an open, eager challenge. "Chamber of Secrets for known threats, or blacklisted visitors."

"The Headmistress would have to-"

"She's in her office now."

"And it would have to be implemented be-"

"Before the students arrive," Potter's eyes flashed, and somehow the triumphant gleam failed to set Severus' teeth on edge. "Once we know it'll work, we can decide if we've got enough time for it. So if you're ready to stop sulking and fetch the Queen Bobble out, we can get this experiment underway!"

"Thin ice, Potter..." Severus growled as he strode into the workroom where the unassuming blob of glass still waited on the worktop. "And I will have this plain before I put one foot into that office," he grabbed Potter's shoulder, stopping short his rush for the door. "I do not take dares from Gryffindors. Not even you."

Potter laughed, the wretch, and leaned close to kiss him briefly on the lips. "I'll talk to the Hat myself then," he said, somehow guiding them both out into the hallway. "But if it _does_ work, then you're buying the bottle tonight, and I want scotch!"

Brushing a fingertip over his tingling mouth, Severus forbore to mention that he'd ordered a bottle of Auld Wallace from Hogsmeade two weeks before. It would do as well for a peace offering, should this ridiculous idea actually work, as it would have done for a birthday gift.

 

~*~

Potter looked up as Severus handed him the highball glass, his green eyes still glittering with triumph, just as though their accomplishment of the afternoon had been his work alone. Severus knew beyond certainty that the next words the wretch uttered would be obnoxious. Selfish, egotistical, and as utterly without decorum as the man himself.

"Good job today, Snape," Potter said

Merlin's bollocks, he'd been right. Trust Potter to have no bloody respect for a thoroughly justified snubbing! Bad enough he'd managed to worm his way back into Severus' rooms, and to have solved by himself the problem they'd been wrestling with for a fortnight, but Potter's infernal cheer was entirely uncalled for.

Still, Severus found himself nodding in acceptance of the damned compliment before he strode away to his own chair.

With perfect obliviousness, Potter nattered on while Severus settled his light summer robes about himself. "I think Minerva was really impressed with the bobbles, and-"

"Typical of a Gryffindor to be distracted by the flashiest part of the process," he grumbled, "the spell spheres are merely an amusing practical joke without the focusing intent of the Sorting Hat." Potter beamed, clearly taking his criticism of Gryffindors in general as some kind of personal compliment. Disgusted, Severus let it drop, and in some instinctive flicker of self-preservation, Potter did so as well, though he didn't manage to stop grinning.

Severus focused on his own drink, and stole sidelong glances at the bane of his life in silence. The golden bronze into which his erstwhile sunburn had mellowed made a pleasing contrast to the occasional flickers of white teeth and glinting green eyes. His time at the Italian lake had worn well on him, although the utter injustice of Potter being a tanner instead of a peeler did rather spoil Severus' ability to appreciate the view.

He consoled himself with his whiskey, ignoring the fact that he seemed to have got used to the stuff somehow, and even come to like it somewhat in the months Potter had been forcing it on him. Potter likewise seemed content to drink and think in silence.

"So, do you really think we'll manage to get this all up before the students come back?" Potter broke the hush just as Severus was beginning to settle into it.

He sneered, and refilled their glasses. "Potter, I should not have told the Headmistress so were I not confident of my-" he pulled short, then redirected in favour of the Hero's ego. "Our ability to deliver. Besides, this portkey scheme is merely a supplement to the existing wards, which we will leave in place until we have sorted out a _proper_ solution to the problem of the wardstones."

"Yeah," Potter did not sound convinced, "but there's only a couple of weeks left, and-"

"And the bulk of the necessary work," Severus pointed out, "was accomplished in the Headmistress' office today. All that really remains is for the staff to return and dismantle any personal wards they've placed on their rooms, classes, or offices, and for you to make more of those spell spheres-"

"Called bobbles, you know."

Severus ignored him. "- so that we'll have a redundant spell focus-"

"Queen bobble."

"-Spell. Focus. In case something unforeseen happens to the first. Even should you remain in your current sloppily inebriated state-"

"Hey!"

"- for the next twenty days, meeting our deadline should pose no problem."

"One bloody drink," Potter carried on his protest, sitting upright in the chair to gesture with the highball he'd nearly emptied for the second time that afternoon. "One bloody drink does not make me 'sloppily inebriated'!"

Severus smirked, and emptied his own. "It does when you've clearly skipped breakfast to come and barge into my dungeons in the first place, and then spent the rest of the morning on spellwork without stopping for lunch." Potter's rant stopped dead, and his eyes took on that vacant expression they always did when the brat tried to do sums in his head. Severus waited until the expectant flush spread across those cheeks before he drove the point home. "Or, was I not meant to notice this ham-fisted attempt to get me drunk and amiable?"

Unaccountably, Potter's grin returned. "Well, I'll admit it, you are usually more amiable when you're drunk, but today wasn't deliberate, I promise. I just got carried away, and kind of forgot to eat, is all."

Severus raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Forgot to eat? What kind of an idiot _forgets_ to eat?" He made a sweep with his snifter, taking in Potter's rangy, underweight frame. "What did you imagine your metabolism was going to burn to generate the magic you've been using today then, may I ask? More of your muscle tone? Or have you decided you aren't short enough, and can spare some bone mass instead? And WHAT the devil are you smirking at, you wretched-"

Potter's shaking laughter became audible, and Severus fetched out his most ferocious scowl while he waited it out.

"You-" Potter gulped eventually. "You're _nagging_ me!"

Severus reached for the bottle to cover his sudden mortification. "Of course I'm not-"

"You are!" Potter held out his glass for a refill. "You're sitting there, black as a kettle, and nagging me about skipping meals, when you haven't eaten today either, and you've done just as much magic as I have!"

"Nonsense," Severus replied, sloshing more liquor in, and then refilling his own glass. "I merely-"

"Merely did all the charm work on the Queen Bobble -"

"Spell focus."

"-While I just had a chat with the Hat." He blinked, then snickered. "Chat with the Hat. Heh. Say, do you suppose Dr. Seuss went to Hogwarts with McGonagall?"

"Doctor Whom?" But of course, Potter ignored him.

"So we've had the Rat in the Hat as well, haven't we? And the Bat-"

"Potter..." Severus warned, and miraculously, Potter heeded.

"The Brat in the Hat, that would be Draco Malfoy... no wait, he'd be the Twat in the Hat."

Severus didn't laugh, though it took some doing. "And you would be?"

"The Prat in the Hat, at your service!" Potter climbed out of his chair to bow, and somehow managed not to fall over, though Severus didn't exactly see how. And when he came upright, he not only the un-spilled drink in one hand, he had his wand in the other.

_The little wretch!_ Severus thought _He IS metabolizing the alcohol!_ For there could be no other explanation but that the brat was converting it directly into magical energy, just as Albus had always done with sugar! The injustice was simply staggering.

In retaliation, Severus topped off Potter's glass before he sat back down.

"I was not nagging," he said, smirking as Potter sloshed whiskey over his hand while flopping into the chair. "Were I inclined to nag, I shouldn't bother with such trivialities as what and whether you eat. Not when you provide so many better examples of ridiculous self-destruction."

"Hey now! I haven't tried to destroy myself in months," Potter said, eyes at last beginning to show a trace of appropriate wariness as he licked his knuckles clean. "I told you already I didn't know about the cologne. That was an honest mistake." Severus ignored the distraction tactic and went for blood instead.

"Mm. And setting aside your hollow attempt at equivocation, I suppose you imagine that hiding from your surrogate family on account of your sordid history with _one_ individual seems functional to you?"

Potter went very still, glass poised just at his parted lips. Severus thought it might have trembled.

"You never were a creature of isolation, Potter," he went on, pushing steadily at the weak point. "Your demeanor at the beginning and end of your every school term made that clear."

"I'm fine," Potter managed at last, looking fixedly into his glass.

Severus scoffed. "You wither and brood without your friends and well-wishers to support you, and we both know it! You have always been a," he couldn't stop his lip curling, "social creature, and yet here you sit, interred alive in a dungeon with a man you have hated since first you saw him. And this seems somehow healthy to you?"

One eye blazed, hurt and green from under Potter's fringe as he set his half-full glass aside. "If you don't want me here, I'll go."

"Sit down and don't be obtuse," Severus snarled. "Why is it that you have ignored every invitation Molly Weasley has sent you for the past two years?"

"Didn't care to go." Potter's tone was thunderous, and Severus took pleasure in ignoring the warning. The same instinct that had prised every sin, no matter how well concealed, from the House of Slytherin for sixteen years was tingling now. He was on the trail of something that wanted saying, and he didn't need legilimency to know it.

"And this would be for the same reason that you no longer seek, or even permit the company of your peers?" he asked. "Time was, Mr. Potter, that every weekend found you holding court in some pub or another."

"Why should you care?" Ah, yes. There was the rage, leaping up to guard the aching truth. "I don't go because I don't want to! I spend time here because I thought-" he bit the rest back with a savage shake of his head.

"When have I failed to make it plain when you were unwelcome, Potter?" Severus didn't bother to hide his exasperation.

"Today." How could a grown man who had fought and won a war sound so very small?

Severus sighed, and tipped more gold into Potter's glass. "Today, you are still sitting in _that_ chair, in front of _my_ fire, and you are still drinking whiskey that _I_ paid for. Take that as your evidence, and allow me to come within a stone's throw of my point, if you can."

Potter took both the glass, and the hint, sighing grumpily as he settled back into the chair as though to shield his back. "Fine. Then what _is_ your point?"

"That doors are still open to you, Potter. Doors which have been closed to me since the first time I fell from grace." Severus turned his left arm up, and could feel his hidden mark crawl under Potter's brief glance. "My isolation is earned, and well-deserved; I am unpleasant company, and I represent unpleasant things that people would rather forget." Potter looked up, mouth opening as though he would argue. Severus forestalled him with a raised hand. "I do not leave Hogwarts because I am not welcome anywhere else, but you, Mr. Potter, are welcome elsewhere. There are, in fact, very few places in which you would _not_ be welcome, had you the courage to overcome your self-imposed exile."

Potter was still for a moment, his eyes once more shielded behind his shaggy fringe as anger gathered like a thundercloud around him. Severus waited him out, knowing his aim had been sure, and ready for any rage the brat might dish out.

Potter gulped down the rest of his drink, teeth a grimace of white as he pushed up to his feet.

"Sit down," Severus warned, standing himself to block Potter's escape.

"No."

"Potter, I'm warning you," Severus backed only one step as the thick-headed, stubborn brat came at him, just enough to shake his wand out of his sleeve.

"Shut up," Potter snarled, lurching forward and grabbing two handsful of Severus' robes. "Shut up. I'm going to kiss you."

"What?" Severus tried to lurch back, tried to grab for Potter's hands, dropped his wand, and nearly tipped them both over his fireside table before he regained his balance. "Whatever for?" he demanded, craning away from Potter's nearing face.

"Because I want you to shut up," the wretch said, pressing his body against Severus' own until he had no choice but to drop into the chair, or else tip it over backward. "I want you to shut up, and kissing you's a lot safer than hexing you right now."

"Potter, you had bloody well better - Mph!"

It was an invasion, a wet, insistent press of lips and tongue and knees and thighs and chest and chin that clambered into his lap and past his teeth without the possibility of evasion. Fists wrung tight in his lapels as the assault carried on with taut, hollow breaths in the straining chest beneath Severus' hands, puffs of angry air against his cheek, and the crunching twist of his own hair against the chair back as he tried to turn his face away from the crushing, silencing kiss.

"Mphotter..." He squirmed, got his hands up to the brat's face, and caught his chin. "Potter, stop," he gasped a breath, brushed his lips against those still pursed angrily between his finger and thumb, and murmured again. "Stop." Another kiss as Potter tried to speak, this one lingering softly over the open lips, but not venturing inside. "Harry. Stop."

Potter went stiff, and then went limp against him, hands releasing his robes, tense thighs settling his weight across Severus' lap, face sliding alongside Severus' own to rest his forehead against the chair back. A tiny sound escaped him, a young sound, that could have meant 'I'm sorry' as easily as 'don't hurt me.' Wrestling his arm out from under Potter's chest, Severus gingerly patted the young man's back until his breathing deepened, and the trembling eased.

"I know why you refused to put the Sorting Hat on today." Potter's voice, when he finally spoke, was steady, and stronger than Severus expected. His eyes were dry and clear as he sat back onto Severus' knees, and the flush across his bronzed face might as easily have been alcohol as emotion.

Distracted between confusion and frustration, it took Severus a moment to follow his meaning. "Oh?" he said, withdrawing his hands from the curve of Potter's hips as the boy nodded.

"Yes. Because you didn't want it digging around in your head," Potter said, seemingly as unaware of Severus' growing discomfiture as he was of the erection tenting his trousers. "Because you've had enough of that in your life, between Voldemort and..." he swallowed the name back, and dropped a hand onto Severus' breast, just below the collarbone, one calloused thumb toying around and around the waistcoat button. "And you're tired of having to be on your guard against it."

Cock thickening, head swimming, Severus coughed, "Potter," but was not surprised when he was ignored.

"Because now you've done your bit," Potter murmured as his thumb went around and around. "You've fought your battles, and you've given up your pound of flesh, and you just want people to leave your head alone."

"Yes," Severus sighed, in answer both to what had been said, and what had not.

Potter's eyes flickered up to meet his, their expression somewhere in the uncharted territory between demand and plea. "I don't want to fight with you," he said as his thumb popped the button out of its hole at last. "I really, really don't."

"Then don't," Severus replied. Then he caught that somber, flushed, maddening face between his own hands, and kissed the little bastard properly.

~*~

"Sto- Merlin, Potter! Stop!"

"Mmm?" Potter asked, and didn't.

"Uhnnng... don't do that!"

"This?" Potter ran his tongue under Severus' foreskin. "Thought you liked this."

Severus fought to stop his eyes rolling back into his skull. "I do like that, cretin," he bit out, fisting the duvet savagely. "Don't do the other!"

"Oh, you mean this?" Potter asked, and nudged his anus again.

"GAH!" Severus tried to squirm away from the finger while keeping the lips in proximity. "Yes, that! Don't do that!"

There followed an ominous pause, Potter's breath tickling across his sensitive, exposed cock head in hot, humid puffs. Then, "Why not?" Potter cocked his head, and smiled a dare as his finger slid across Severus' hole just as his tongue darted out and licked a dribble of precome from the slit of his cock. Severus whimpered. Whimpered, damn it!

"It's actually quite nice, you know," another stroke/lick. Severus writhed. "Loads better than you'd think. There's this little-"

"I bloody well know what a prostate gland is, Potter," Severus finally collected the wits to shout. "And no, a finger in my arse does not feel quite nice!"

Potter hiked his weight up onto one elbow, braced across Severus' hip as if they both didn't know he was holding the older man down. "You tried it then?" he asked, his fingertip continuing to circle and tease the flinching hole. "While I was gone?"

"Of course. Unlike SOME, I am capable of self-motivated study, and-"

Potter smirked, damn him. "And you saw how hard I came that last time when I put my finger inside, right?"

"Hmph. Well, you seemed to enjoy it," Severus conceded, glowering at the bed canopy overhead. "But then again, you also enjoy malt whiskey, curried chips, and those repulsive cauldron cakes, so I might have known-" Then the weight lifted away abruptly. Potter released his firm (maddening) grip on the base of Severus' cock, got up to his knees, and slid off the bed altogether. And there Severus lay, hard and leaking, and spread wide as a Knockturn Alley whore while the bastard walked away? Blood and fury blazed in his face as he growled through his teeth. "Potter..."

"Relax, I'm just looking for something," he tossed carelessly over his shoulder as he strode, naked and unabashed into the bathroom. "Be right back. Keep that warm for me while I look, why don't you?"

"If I'm to do it myself, then why are you even-"

Potter's chuckle interrupted him, even as it sent a bolt straight through his needy cock. "Oh, I'll take care of you, Snape," he promised, rattling bottles about in the cabinets. "Now about the finger. Tell me what you thought of it."

"It was... odd," Severus admitted, wrapping his hand around the damp flesh Potter's lips had abandoned. "Awkward. Quite uncomfortable."

"Okay," Potter's voice floated out of the bathroom. "And how many did you try?"

"What do you mean, how many? Why on earth should I have continued after one?"

Potter emerged, a pot of analgesic salve in one hand, face plastered with a roguish grin, and his cock bobbing smugly with every step he took back to the bed. "Want to find out?"

Severus had just opened his mouth to remind the wretched brat yet again that he did not take dares from Gryffindors, when Potter thumbed the cork out of the fat, squat jar, and dipped all four fingers inside. "S- surely not!"

Potter chuckled. "Well, not to start with, no." He settled himself back between Severus' thighs, nuzzled briefly at the heavy, swollen bollocks there, and hummed. Severus' cock jumped and drizzled in his hand, and his protests somehow got run down beneath a needy groan.

"So then," the imp had the nerve to ask, "trust me?"

Severus truly did mean to say no. He meant to blister the hide off the presumptuous brat's ears, and send him packing with his tail between his legs. But somehow, instead, he was letting his knees fall wide, letting Potter's slick, slimy fingers rub the salve across his... oh.

Oh my...

Severus tried and failed to strangle a groan as the tip of Potter's finger slipped inside him, and somehow didn't hurt at all. In fact, the slight, smooth invasion made him rather desperately want to... stretch like a cat.

"Mmm," he could feel Potter smirk against his thigh as the fingertip retreated to circle again. "Thought you might've tried it dry..." He nipped, then licked the spot, and pressed his fingertip in again. "More?"

"Ahh!" Severus gulped, forcibly resisting the urge to rut against the invading finger as it slid deeper, then retreated again. "You... you did it like that before." Potter hummed a question against the vein of his cock, and Severus' breath staggered in his throat. "Just put it right in... while you - oh Merlin!" The finger returned, a long, slick slide. Severus bore out against it, and nearly came as he felt Potter's bunched knuckles press behind his bollocks.

"Oh. I suppose I did," Potter said, cheek resting against Severus' thigh. "M'used to it though. Taken much more'n just a finger or two..." He put out his tongue, and licked Severus' cock from root to tip, right across Severus' knuckles, and _damn him,_ but he sounded smug! "Liked it, too." The finger crooked upward. The mouth sucked downward. Severus' eyes rolled backward. "Lots."

"Hnguh," Severus said, then shook the roaring blood from his head and tried again. "What... that was my-"

"Mmm. Prostate." Somehow Potter managed to smirk around a mouthful of cock as he released the head with a wet sort of pop, a sigh, and an evil glint in his eye. "Want me to do it again?"

"Merlin, yes!" Severus yelped as that amazing, horrifying, delicious finger crooked inside him once more. And after that, it was all a muddle of slide and suck and stretch and shiver and sparks behind his eyes. He lost track of the humiliating noises he made, could not begin to count the number of times he thought surely he would have to come, or else die. He bid farewell to every last vestige of dignity and restraint he had ever possessed, and by the time his orgasm roared through him, Severus could not have told under Veritaserum whether he had begged for it or not.

He lay afterwards, stunned, and blowing like a winded hippogriff as his entire body whirled and rang with echoes of the pleasure. His thoughts were still hollow, primal bursts of unshaped amazement for which he had never known words.

"So," A warm voice chuckled from between his thighs, and Severus gasped and jerked as he felt a tongue trace languidly through a stripe of cooling spend along his hip. "How many fingers d'you think I've got inside you right now?"

Well mortification handily dispelled the euphoric amazement, didn't it? Severus slapped a palm over his blazing face and groaned. "Potter, for the love of Merlin!"

"All right, all right," the cheeky wretch replied. He gave his fingers a slight push inward, winning another lurch and gasp from Severus, before the invasion withdrew. Potter sat upright, wiping his hand on a flannel Severus hadn't seen him summon, and grinning. "So then, now you've done fingers properly, what do you think?"

What did he think? Severus thought, first and foremost, that it was a damn good thing he'd remained celibate throughout his tenure as a spy, because if anyone, Death Eater, Marauder, Auror, or Dark Lord himself, had made him feel what Potter just had, Severus wouldn't have managed to hold onto a single secret in his brain. There'd been moments, strung wire-taut between Potter's wicked mouth and his clever fingers, when Severus would have said, done, or promised anything to win release.

But he'd sooner face death by Cruciatus than to admit such a thing to any relation of James Potter, so he slid a languid hand along Potter's dripping prick, scarlet, neglected, and bobbing needily against his belly as the youth settled beside him. "I think you had bloody well better teach me how to do that!"

 

~*~

"Snape...?"

"Mmm?"

"Y'drunk?"

"Mmm."

"Me too."

A rustle of cloth. "That is no excuse." Enunciated with surgical precision.

"F'what?"

A pondering hesitation. "...Anything."

"Kay..." A long silence. A brush of hand to face. "Really drunk here... Tired." Another long pause. A snuffling, waking start. "Hng. Right, right." A wistful sigh. "Where d'you s'pose m pants got to?"

"Potter..." Growled with bloodthirsty intent.

"Huh?"

"Lay down. Go to sleep. Shut up." A moment. "Or leave. Without your damned pants."

"Oh." A rustle of cloth. A grateful sigh. "S'brilliant..."

Silence. Levelling breath the only darkened sound, until linens rustle with a body's sudden turn. "Potter?"

"Mmm?"

"Before...How many?"

More rustling, a sound of gathering-in, of settling close.

"Enough." The word curls out around a smile.


	10. A Matter of Trust

_Fuck you too, Draco._

_You know very well I don't give a damn about you cheating on me -- I've known you for a fickle bastard since we shared a dormitory room in school, after all. But you've no call to go using Parkinson like that. And to get what out of it, exactly? It's not like you can support her once it begins to show. She'll be disinherited, and you know damned well there's nothing left of the Malfoy name to inherit. So you'll gain nothing, and she'll lose everything, and you still think I'll give you free run of my bedroom and bank vault after pulling a stunt like that?_

_Believe me, you're not that good a fuck._

_It doesn't really surprise me that you're stupid enough to treat fellow Slytherins like toys though, so much as it disappoints me. For a little while, I thought you might actually be growing into something besides just another silverplate Malfoy bully. Cutting Potter loose last spring looked deceptively like you might have been growing up, but I suppose that was too much to expect._

_Well, here's a clue for you: I'm bored with your games, I'm bored with your ego, I'm bored with your expenses, and I'm bored with you. If you weren't poor as dirt, your arse might possibly make it worth the trouble of having to watch my back around you, but as it is, you're not even worth the trouble it would take to poison you and dispose of your body. And don't fool yourself for an instant that anybody would take up the cause of trying to find you -- nobody but Potter imagines your acquittal meant you were innocent in any way. The Ministry'd be just as happy to know you were gone._

_Don't bother coming back to Ellemore House pick up your things -- I've already sent them on to your mum's solicitor. And don't bother Parkinson either -- she's unavailable as of today. I'm rich, you see, and I'm single, and I haven't disgraced my family name through prison and attempted murder. Her father was overjoyed with my proposal, and she was frankly rather relieved to learn she wouldn't have to rely on you for anything. Consider that a fairly accurate benchmark of your worth to your closest friends, you tosser._

_I'd invite you to the wedding, but I don't care to see you, nor does Pansy, and it's not as though you could afford a worthwhile gift anyway. So just watch the society pages instead. There'll be an announcement before long.  
Sincerely,  
Blaise Zabini_

~* October 3 *~

Finally, Harry couldn't stand it anymore. He rolled onto his belly, stretched for and just reached a wand on the night table -- he couldn't see who's in the way-too-damned-early dungeon gloom -- and cast a lubrication spell.

Behind and half on top of him, Snape woke with a grunt and a jerk that drove his swollen prick skiddingly along the crease of Harry's thighs. "Hgnuh?" The man groaned as Harry wriggled properly underneath him. "What are you-" his words staggered into a gasp as his prick slipped into the slickened, tight hollow between Harry's arse and legs.

Groggy, grumpy, and horny, Harry couldn't help echoing the sentiment. Especially when he felt Snape's cock nudge his swollen bollocks from behind. "I'm taking care of _this_" he flexed his thighs, "so you'll let me get some bloody _sleep_ before today's game!" Harry had just enough presence of mind to tuck the wand under the pillow before wriggling one hand underneath himself for his own cock.

Snape's breath was a humid blaze along Harry's spine, his cheek rough with stubble, hair a maddening tickle to his cheek as he pushed his hips forward, then back. The squelching noise was filthy and loud and sexy as hell, and Harry's cock throbbed hungrily against the bed sheets as he buried a groan in the pillow. Then Snape reared up suddenly, hands pressing down the linens beside Harry's face, voice high with alarm. "What have you -- I'm not inside-"

"No, damn it, you're not in my arse!" Harry bumped his hips up, reaching back with his free hand to grab Snape's back and press him back down again. The heated length rubbed along his puckered opening -- a heartless taste of what he couldn't ask Snape for yet -- and Harry ground his teeth in frustration. "I said you could wait to fuck me until you were ready," he panted. "But I did NOT say I'd let you knock me out of bed with your morning-fucking-wood every time I slept in over!"

"But you've..." another squish as he dragged his cock slowly out, the ridged head scraping Harry's hole once again. It nearly caught when he pushed back inward, nudged, pressed hard, then slipped past. "Ought it to be so..." Snape's voice fluttered across Harry's neck, too sleepy-muzzy-horny to curl with disgust yet. "...damp?"

"Lube. Spell." Harry bit out, arching his hips so he could fist his cock properly. "I'll teach you it later, but only if you MOVE NOW!"

With a snarl, he did so, dropping his full weight onto Harry's back as he rammed his hips forward. Harry yelped as his head met the wall, but a moment later, Snape's wiry arm was digging underneath him, nails scraping his belly, fingers tangling with Harry's around his cock, slipping in the slow trickle of lube from the sweaty crease above.

Harry whined, relishing the slick, heavy feeling, Snape's grip just _so_ tight, his stroke ending in just _such_ a twist as that rigid cock prodded his bollocks and perineum over and over. Snape's breath was a grunting rhythm in his ear, animal and fierce, and fully as sexy as the slick, squelching counterpoint of their skins sliding together. It was base, and it was frantic, and not nearly what Harry wanted, but it was better than lying there with a hard-on while Snape rutted against him in his sleep.

Harry clenched his thighs, frantic as the burn began to settle into his bollocks and tighten into a yearning ache. "Come on," he chanted into the pillow fluff, "come on, come on..." Then teeth closed on his shoulder; a rough, fierce clench as Snape came with a muffled roar. Undone by the unexpected pain, the surging heat against his bollocks, and the fierce clench of Snape's fist around him, Harry came not a second later.

There was a long moment comprised only of gasping breath, settling weight, and morning-coloured relief. Then, in a sudden, heaving groan, Snape rolled off him. "That was...interesting," he observed between gulps of air. "What is it called?"

Harry mumbled into the pillow, only to receive a poke in the ribs for his trouble. "The duvet did not ask you a question, Potter," Snape pointed out, leaning across Harry's back to pluck the remaining wand from the night table. "If this is meant to be a learning experience-"

"Intercrural." Harry levered himself over and out of Snape's bed in a single movement. "Also called a thigh job, or thigh fucking, if you're talking to an American." He snatched his glasses from the table and jammed them onto his face, ignoring the sticky, funky, cooling mess that was dripping down his stomach and legs. "It's uncomfortable for both parties without a great deal of lubrication, but is commonly accepted among gay men as an alternative to sodomy. Now if you've no more questions, may I use your damned shower please?" And Harry stalked off without waiting for an answer.

Thus Snape offering a wry, "Do be my guest," to Harry's retreating back did nothing to improve his mood at all.

~*~

Under the pounding spray, Harry managed to make himself calm down, wake up, and shake himself out of his building sulk. He was going to have to apologize to Snape, he realized, rubbing the cake soap between his hands to lather it up. It had been a perfectly reasonable question, even if it had been asked at the worst possible moment.

He sighed, scrubbing the traces of the lube spell off, and trying to force himself not to remember when the last time he'd had a good, solid fuck had been. Draco, probably, and realizing that did even less good for his foul morning mood. He wanted to get fucked, not screwed, thanks!

But Snape wasn't ready for that, and Harry had promised not to push, no matter how much he wanted to feel that long, curved cock inside him. It might seem backward to Harry, that Snape would submit to being opened, entered, and ridden like a thestral, but then shiver with wide-eyed alarm when Harry suggested switching roles, but that's exactly what had happened each time the subject came up.

The man wasn't a bottom -- not really. He wasn't flexible enough, all knees and elbows and pained grimaces when Harry spread him wide to enter. And he had to work far too hard at it to get release out of the act. Harry'd had to resort to a painful _duratus_ charm more than once in order to make himself last long enough to bring the man off. And he never lost control, not like he did when Harry sucked him off, or even brought him to climax by hand or frottage -- Snape's body could accept the intrusion, but it was clear he didn't crave it. Not like Harry did.

Damn it.

"Doesn't matter," Harry told himself, rubbing the soap over his hair, "Remus only tops. Males can't bottom to non-wolves, so if Remus is the one Snape wants, then that's-"

"Potter." Naked and frowning, Snape flung the bathroom door open. "What's the counter-charm to this damned lubrication spell? It's not coming off properly."

Harry jumped at the bang, then yelped as the soapy water sluiced into his eyes. "GAH! SNAPE," he bellowed, dropping the soap cake to press his hands to his face. "DON'T YOU KNOCK?"

"Not in my own bloody bathroom, Potter," came the amused reply as the door closed once more. "Why, are you afraid I might see you naked? I confess your tattoo is ugly enough to deserve some modesty, but I am hardly in a position to make comment on it, all things considered."

"Ha, bloody ha," Harry growled, blinking hot tears from his eyes to glare at the man, leaning easily on the shower doorway. "I seem to remember you having different ideas about privacy when your pensieve was involved." As soon as the words left his lips, Harry was mentally kicking himself for bringing up that horrible memory.

But before he could open his mouth to apologize for his misstep, Snape gave a snort, pushed himself off the wall, and bent to scoop the soap off the drain. "Yes, well as I recall that incident, you did not have my spunk on your breath, or the scent of my arse on your fingers at the time." He handed the soap back to a gobsmacked Harry, and gave a triumphant smirk. "Now. The counter-charm?"

"Don't know one," Harry admitted, soaping his hair vigorously to hide the flush he could feel heating his face. "I usually just wash it off." Catching a glimpse of Snape's arching eyebrow, Harry shrugged. "Well, why did you think I never used it with you before? Regular lube comes off with a cleaning charm, or a damp flannel. The spell needs soap to come ..." he glanced up, noticed that Snape's expression had shifted from bemused, to confused, the dark eyes fixed on the top of Harry's head rather than on his face. "What?"

"What on earth are you doing, Potter?"

"Washing my hair," Harry replied, setting the soap cake back in its basket.

"With the bath soap." It really was only a very mild version of the man's 'you are an utter idiot' voice, but it still got right under Harry's skin.

"Yes, with the soap! You ought to give it a try, soap -- it's the reason _my_ hair's not greasy!"

"It's the reason you always look as though you're about to be struck by lightning," Snape scoffed, reaching down a blue glass bottle and thumbing out the stopper. "Have you never heard of shampoo?"

And that time, Harry could neither stop, nor hide the furious blush that heated his face. Of course he'd heard of it, but growing up with the Dursleys, he'd never been allowed to use any. Cheap soap was good enough for the likes of him, and he'd just got used to doing it that way over the years. But he wasn't about to tell Snape that!

"Oh, and I suppose you're meant to give me grooming tips now, are you?" Harry bit out, stepping under the spray to rinse out the thin lather.

Behind him, he heard Snape give a derisive snort. "Oh, believe me, I am conscious of the irony." And then Harry was being tugged back into the man's chest -- just enough so that his head was no longer under the falling water.

"Oi!" Harry flung out his arms, but Snape's weight didn't shift as a lean, strong arm wrapped around Harry's waist to steady him.

"Be still, you fool," Snape's voice rumbled in his ear, "I've got you."

Harry froze, barely able to breathe around the sudden, horrible ache in his throat. A moment later, he felt long fingers smearing something through his wet hair, nails lightly scratching his scalp in random, idle patterns as the lather foamed up in a woodsy, herb-rich scent. The shampoo trailed tickling drizzles of suds, slick and much softer than the soap usually was, down his jaw, his neck, his throat. He swallowed thickly as Snape's other hand came up to join the scalp massage.

"I can do that," he managed to croak.

Snape didn't stop, fingers scrubbing the sensitive curves behind Harry's ears. "I expect you can," he rumbled, like a purring thing. "Only I seem to recall something about one's lover touching one simply because he wishes to?"

And that was too much. Harry lurched out of Snape's grasp, shouldered hard against the tiles. "Don't. Just don't, okay?" he ground out, wiping angrily through the trailing suds that sought along his face for his already stinging eyes. "You're not, so you don't have to..."

Then he saw Snape's hands: stilled midair, still arched and spread as they had been against his skull moments before. A fine tremour began in them as he watched, and a moment later, they closed to fists, and dropped down to the man's sides. Shite.

"I didn't mean it that way," Harry tried, glancing at Snape's iron-hard eyes and cursing himself again. "Look, Snape, you know by now I'm a stupid arse in the mornings," he reached out, but Snape was already turning to leave, soapy hands and all.

Harry lunged after him, caught him by the shoulders and made him stop. "I'm sorry, Sna... Severus. I really am, I didn't mean that the way it came out. I promise I didn't."

Snape's shoulders were bars of iron under Harry's palms, and he didn't turn his head to reply in a chilling voice, "Then perhaps you ought to try and explain exactly what you did mean by that, _Potter._"

"I meant that you're not _my_ lover, not really." Snape made a restless movement, and Harry tightened his grip, moving closer so he could lean apologetically against the man's back. "I mean you don't want to be my lover. You want to be Remus' lover, and all this between us is just a mid-step, right? You learning what it entails, so things can go smoothly with him..."

Snape turned under his hands, and his face was an echo from the worst Potion's class ever. And Harry, knowing full well that he deserved that incredulously scornful look, drew Snape gently back into the shower. "That's why I'm always so pissy in the mornings when I stay over here with you. The way you are when you wake up..." a dozen adjectives zipped through Harry's mind -- horny, hungry, needy, clingy, gentle, funny, sexy -- all of them had the ring of danger to them, and not trusting his too-damn-early-in-the-morning tongue, he elected to leave them all off. "Well, it just reminds me of what I don't have anymore."

Snape made a rude noise, but he didn't stop Harry guiding him under the shower spray, and then soaping his back for him. "And here," he said in a not-quite-cutting voice, "I thought that garish stain you have on your shoulder was meant to do that."

"No," Harry smiled ruefully, "that's just there to stop me being stupid."

"Then you'll want to get your money back," Snape said, turning in his arms, and stealing the soap. "Because it clearly isn't working."

Figuring he'd got off lightly, all things considered, Harry let that one roll off him, and stood still while Snape's hands slicked the fine, silky lather all over him. He let go a big sigh, blowing as much of the nervy, aching tension out of him as he could. Waking up under the hot water and the gentle touch, he was more than a little ashamed of himself, and much more than a little amazed that Snape hadn't hexed him flat already.

"I really am sorry," he said, facing up into the spray to sluice the soap and shampoo and and loneliness off him. "I'm really crap at mornings, you know."

"Yes, that I had noticed." Merlin, he actually sounded amused.

Unable to resist, and knowing he was setting himself up for a blow, but figuring he'd probably deserve it if he got one, Harry fished a bit more. "Dunno why you keep on putting up with me..."

"Other than the sex, I suppose you mean?"

Not much of a knockback, was it? Harry wiped the water from his eyes, and nodded. Snape's smirk took an evil turn as he stepped into the spray, and whispered into Harry's ear. "Because if I hex you until you physically resemble the petty, sniping twat you are in the mornings before tea, then not only will I have to cast and maintain the event wards on the Quidditch pitch today by myself, but I'll have to referee Minerva's bloody fundraising game alone as well."

Harry choked on a laugh. "Thought you'd like the chance to give Slytherin an easy win behind my back."

"And miss the sour expression on your face when Slytherin hands out a thrashing despite your shameless favouritism for Gryffindor?" Snape shot back. "Never!"

And that laugh, Harry didn't bother to stifle. "Too bad today's Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw then, isn't it?"

"Quite," Snape replied, setting the soap back into its basket and stealing Harry's towel. "However, if you're done with your morning sulk, Potter, we ought to eat something and then get down to inspect the pitch before the students and guests begin to arrive."

~*~

Snape had just thrown a penalty flag on Hufflepuff for a (perfectly allowable) Bludger pass, when Harry saw it: a glimmer, fleeting and bright against the sharp October sky. Just the sort of flicker that never failed to make his heart race, his stomach flip, and his knees clench on the broomstick.

He quickly looked for both Seekers, gratified to find that Rose Pillaster was already tracking it, sharp eyed and determined while she waited for Snape's whistle. The crowd, a mix of students, Hogwarts alumni, and guests from Hogsmeade, catcalled and booed restlessly while they waited, but Ernesto DeCastillo, the weedy little transfer student who'd just come to Ravenclaw from house Corax at Durmstrang, was just as focused... in the opposite direction.

Harry turned on his broom, the hairs already rising on the back of his neck. Yes. There, skimming low over the stands. _Damn it!_

The whistle sounded. The Seekers blazed into motion, and Harry swore as he jammed his own whistle into his mouth and blew with all his might. Nobody paused. Another penalty when play hadn't even begun was impossible. They probably thought it was just an echo, but Harry wasn't having any. He blew another blast, diving after Castillo, who looked closer to his catch.

"POTTER!" Snape's voice, echoing with _Sonorus._ "WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU DOING?"

"TWO SNITCHES!" Harry screamed back, pushing his Firebolt to catch Castillo's Toronado as the boy stretched out his hand. He didn't know if Snape had heard, but he didn't have time to make it any clearer. He pushed a final jolt of speed out of his Firebolt, and tapped the knob into Castillo's birch-twig besomhead in a fierce and entirely illegal jostle.

The boy yelped, missed his grab, and slipped sideways on his broom. Harry caught him before he could come unseated, righting him with a hard shove. "Whistle's blown, Castillo," he panted to the boy's outraged face. "You're to go to ground."

"But I almost had it!"

"PLAYERS TO THE GROUND!" Snape's voice filled the stands, and Castillo flinched as though he'd been slapped.

Harry released his arm, suddenly as worried as he was mystified. "Go on then. We'll sort this out. And don't touch that Snitch!" he called after the boy as he dove away to join his teammates on the ground.

"Well, it looks as thought the Referees have grounded the teams," the announcer informed the muttering crowd. "The Bludgers have been brought out of play, and it looks as though the Snitch has been summoned in as well. The Referees seem to be conferring... wait, there's still a Snitch on the field!"

So that was what Snape was up to, Harry supposed, keeping a steady three broom-lengths behind his own Snitch while he fired _accio_ after _accio_ at the thing, to absolutely no effect.

"That would be the interloper, I suppose?" Snape called, swooping in beside him, the real Snitch fluttering in his hand.

"Well it's sure as hell not regulation issue," Harry growled in return as it zigged suddenly downward. "Doesn't respond to any form of summoning or herding spell, even with the Referee key charms." He flickered a glance to Snape, hard-faced in his black and white referee robes. "I'll have to catch it the old fashioned way," he said, and dove.

"Potter, wait!"

He didn't, but even as he felt the stroke of a familiar summoning magic across the back of his neck, he realized that Snape was right -- it was stupid to just grab for the thing when a bobble could contain it so much more readily. He poured on the speed, but swerved wide, herding the Snitch away from the gathered students, and straight into the path of the floating blue bobble, just barely visible against the cerulean sky.

The Snitch dodged, as Snitches do -- dodged, and tried to swerve back to the players. Harry swatted at it with a corner of his cloak, and the gust of wind was just enough to push it into the bobble's swooping path.

The two spheres met in a blast of white that utterly erased the sky, the stands, and after a shocked moment, Harry himself.

~*~

"Potter."

"Mmph."

"Potter, damn you, sit up!"

"Owww."

"No, I said sit up, you fool, not open your eyes. Come on...there. Don't you vomit on me, you wretch, lean to the side."

Harry clung, panted, and just let the cool fingers ghost over his back and head. "Cold," he said. Then, "Happened?"

"You managed to get yourself caught in a portkey implosion, is all." Snape's voice was far more comforting than it should have been, given the number of pains that were beginning to make themselves felt all over Harry's body.

"Pomfrey's coming now, Sir." A young voice. One Harry didn't recognize. "Headmistress said we should all stay here on the field until you release us."

"It wasn't any of _us_ cheating though!" Offended, outraged. Still not familiar.

"Hush, Jones. It's the rules. Besides, the Headmistress's got to deal with all the guests. Doesn't need us underfoot, right Sirs?"

Guests. Still on the field. A breeze wandered across Harry's sore back, chilling naked, damp skin as it carried the proof -- crowd noise, muffled by a shielding charm.

Startled, Harry pulled away from Snape's support, and began to turn.

Strong fingers caught his chin. "No, I said keep your eyes closed, Potter. Do you wish to remain even more blind than you usually are?"

"Blind?"

"You looked right into it, Sir," Another kid's voice. Girl this time, and a bit older. "The flash was right in front of you when it happened, and your robes caught on fire. Portia tried to banish the flames, but..." A burst of giggling, and the speaker gave a disgusted snort. "Oh, hush, you twits!"

Tried to banish the flames... Harry winced, noticing now, the tickle of wet grass under his arse and legs. He dropped a hand to his lap, and found a loose drape of woolen fabric instead of his trousers. He groaned. "Snape, tell me I'm not-"

Snape's wry voice cut through the renewed burst of giggles. "I'm afraid your fan club has rather grown this afternoon, Potter. But don't worry, given the number of cameras in the crowd, I'm certain by now someone will have started an adult calendar to commemorate the event."

"Oh, bloody-"

"Language."

"...Heck." Then a horrible thought occurred to him, and he sat up straight, curling one arm across his sore belly, and drawing his legs under himself. "Where's Castillo?"

"Potter," Snape growled, pressing a heavy hand onto his shoulder. "You're burned, bruised, blinded, probably concussed, and I'm fairly certain you've a broken rib as well. Leave off the bloody heroics for a bit, can't you?"

"But he was the target, I'm-"

"Leave. Off." This time Harry heard the underlying warning in Snape's tone. Heard it, and could imagine the boy huddling into himself, apart from his teammates as his dark, haunted eyes flickered about for some means of escape.

Just then, Pomfrey's strident tones cut through the muffling spell as she came near. "Good heavens now, Mr. Potter! I thought I'd seen the last of your spectacular Quidditch injuries!"

"Not while the brat can sit a broom," Snape growled.

"Belt up, you," Harry returned without heat. "It wasn't me who summoned another portkey onto the field." Pomfrey tutted, and Harry tracked to her voice as she came, hearing her robes' rustle as she dropped to the ground beside him.

"What have you done to yourself now?"

"Sixth rib on the left side," Snape replied in a bored tone. "A few first degree burns here and there, and a case of flash-blinding. I'd suspect a concussion, did I not know for a fact that Potter's head is made of solid granite."

A few of the kids gasped, but Harry ignored both the dig, and the urge to smile that came along with hearing it. "Can you do something about my eyes first, please?" he asked, trying not to sound too pathetic.

"I believe so," she said, and he felt her cool fingers settle on his eyelid. "Now this will hurt for just a moment, so take hold of something... OTHER than your wand, thank you." Two long fingers pressed into Harry's palm, and he didn't have to ask whose they were. Then the agony of daylight smashed into his brain like two dozen dancing _Cruciati._

Harry would be comforted later to recall that he hadn't screamed. At the time, however, it was only because he hadn't actually been able to draw the breath to do so. And really, the squeaking sort of whimper he did make wasn't much more manly.

Luckily, Pomfrey's spell took immediate effect, dimming the blaze down under soothing, blue tones, as though the world was plunged into twilight between one breath and the next. He might have been in danger of weeping from relief, had Poppy not patted him on the shoulder and said, "There now. Feel up to walking back to the infirmary, or shall I summon a stretcher?"

Snape pulled his fingers from Harry's now-lax grip, and clapped a hand on Harry's shoulder to keep him down. "Why do you not simply apparate?" he asked, as though the Mediwitch were an utter idiot. To which tone, faced with either a walk back to the castle, or a nauseating stretcher ride, Harry wasn't inclined to object.

The stands were half-empty, hordes of spectators doing their best to ignore the teachers and prefects who were trying to usher them to the exits as they fought to catch a glimpse through the spell Snape had erected around them. The thought of having to run that gauntlet with nothing more on than Snape's Referee cloak draped over his crotch was more than Harry was prepared to brave.

"All right, all right," Pomfrey replied, "There's no need to take that tone with me, Severus Snape. It's only thirty-five years' habit not to apparate on school grounds, you know."

There was a flash to Harry's right. Someone with a camera, trying their luck. Harry groaned, and covered his face. "If someone doesn't get me out of here right now, I'm going to apparate by myself!"

The threat worked. Poppy grabbed one shoulder, Severus the other, and after the world gave a dizzying twist and a crushing squeeze, the infirmary took shape around them. Three walls of hanging linen, a soft cot, warm and blessedly dry under Harry's still damp rear. A thick pillow gave just enough as his weight slid backward into it, and Harry breathed a sigh of intense relief.

Then shouting registered.

"-my wife a mudblood again, and I will bloody well keep knocking your teeth down your throat, until there's nothing left to grow back, you stinking ferret!"

"Lay a hand on me again, Weasel, and you'll find it blasted off!"

"Stop it! Stop it, both of you! You're acting like bloody children!"

"WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME IS GOING ON HERE?!" Pomfrey somehow outshouted all three, sweeping the privacy curtains out of the way and storming toward the disturbance.

"Mr. Malfoy, I mended your nose," she poked a savage finger at the blond, who's nose was still swollen and red. "Mr. Weasley, I removed the cabbages from your ears," A jab at Ron, who's fists were clenched and empty as he stared at his enemy without flinching. "And Mrs. Weasley, you have not been injured in any way at all," a hand wave toward Hermione, who at least had the grace to look ashamed. "So kindly tell me what you three are still DOING here?"

"Snape," Harry whispered as the man shoved him down flat onto the cot and made to stand. "Kill me now, won't you?"

"Kill _you,_ Mr. Potter?" he replied, all eyebrow as the flood of explanations began, one over the other in the background. "I think not. You still have information I want. They, however..." Leaving the threat to dangle, he stood and swept off down the row.

"-our friend, and we just wanted to be sure-"

"Your friend? Hah! Harry can't stand the sight of you two, and you know it!"

"Well, from what we hear, he's not exactly _your_ Sugar Daddy either, Ferretface, so-"

"Ron, stop! This is really stupid!"

"Out. The lot of you. Right now." Pomfrey's ultimatum went unnoticed, as Harry had known it would. The three of them were too involved in each other, chewing over the ancient insults, like starving dogs with a meaty bone. He wasn't even sure any of them had noticed he was actually in the room, and truly, he wasn't sure that was a bad thing.

"Don't you take his side, Hermione! Not after what that Slytherin bas-" She slapped him then, and rounded on Malfoy before he could even bark a laugh at Ron's gobsmacked expression.

"Say one more word, **I** will break your nose!" Hermione snarled. To his credit, Malfoy took a step back. Then Hermione turned to Madam Pomfrey with an apologetic look. "Can you please just tell us all how he is? Is he all right? That's all we want."

"It's good to want things, Mrs. Weasley," Snape growled, drawing near. "It builds character. However in this case, what you want is not yours to demand."

"But we just-" She took a step, hand rising. "Please!"

"He's right," Pomfrey said, her voice colder than Harry could remember hearing it. "Patient information is not free for just anyone's asking. None of you three are on Mr. Potter's disclosure notification, and so until he has been treated, and is prepared to receive visitors, you will just have to wait for your news."

Harry would have kissed her if she hadn't been across the room.

"But you can't do that," Ron protested. "We're his friends!"

Harry's stomach gave a twist. Feeling entirely too exposed with no cover but Snape's cloak, he tugged the linens out from underneath him and started to slither into the bed properly. The hair on his arms was standing up from the chilly air as he struggled with the tightly-folded blankets, and prayed not to be noticed.

"Ron, please." Hermione tugged at her husband's sleeve. "Let's just come back later, and-"

"No! We bloody well stood by him when we faced You Kn-" Ron flushed suddenly, glanced at Snape, and spat the name out. "Voldemort! We've earned the right to-"

"You have lost that right, Weasley," Snape countered, and even Harry shivered at the weight of his voice. "You pawned it two years ago. Now take what you bought with it, and leave while you're still able."

Ron's face turned red, and he dragged against Hermione's hold, just as though Snape wasn't standing there with his wand in hand. Harry knew he had to say something. Do something. Send them all away, before...

A flicker of movement caught his eye, and Harry gasped, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck go up. Draco was looking at him. Right at him, eyes sharp and predatory, mouth curved as he slipped around Snape's blindside, and began sauntering down the row.

None of the others noticed.

Harry, still dazed and aching from his fall, watched him come, unable to look away, unable to speak, unable to even think of something to throw as Draco's smile turned on full, and molten-hot. "My, Potter," he murmured, and his eye raked down Harry's naked chest with obscene relish. "You're looking fit."

Harry swallowed, the shouting at the end of the room blurred into a dull, pounding roar as he forced himself not to clench his fingers in the blanket. "Piss off, Malfoy," he said.

Someone over there fired off a spell. The zing of the magic sent a shiver down Harry's spine, and made him wish he could pull the blankets free enough to hug them higher to his chest.

Draco's eyes flickered, but their leer didn't shift as he stepped closer to Harry's bed, and reached back for the curtains. "Don't be coy now," he said, "I only came to visit..."

"I don't care what you came for," Harry barked. "I don't want you here! Now will you just..." A bobble pinged into the air over Draco's head, its blue glow flickering with amber sparks Harry had never seen before.

Following Harry's gaze, Draco flinched aside, whipped out his wand.

"No, wait," Harry cried.

To late. Draco's hex caught the bobble square on, lit the golden sparks into an inferno, and then lashed back at him with a devastating crack and a smell of ozone. Draco went flying, crashed limply across the bed facing Harry's, and did not move.

"Shite!" Harry tried to struggle back out of the tightly-made bed, but before he'd even managed to free one foot, the bobble calmly drifted across the room, tapped Draco on the head, and portkeyed him away.

"You lay right back down, Mr. Potter," came Pomfrey's strident voice as she came swanning across the infirmary. "I am in no way prohibited from using binding charms to keep concussed patients in bed where they belong, you know!"

Behind her came Snape, calmly slipping his wand back into his sleeve. Of Ron, and Hermione, there was no sign.

"Where are they?" Harry yelped, as though he didn't already know.

"Contained," Snape replied with a sneer. "Now stop being an idiot, and lay down as you're told."

"You blacklisted them!"

Snape merely dusted his hands together, as though to clear them of grime, and gave a satisfied nod. "Hogwarts has no need to indulge the temperament of guests who cannot tell the difference between an infirmary and a donnybrook," he said, his dark eyes taking in Harry's distress without apparent concern.

"Tell me you didn't send them to the Chamber of Secrets!" Harry tried once more to struggle out of the bed, until he caught sight of Pomfrey's baleful glare. She had her wand in her hand, so he lay back again. "They'll kill each other in there!"

"I rather think Mrs. Granger is resourceful enough to keep her husband under control, when properly motivated." Snape whipped his robe off the chair beside Harry's cot, and slung it over his shoulders with a remorseless smirk. "They shall cool their heels for an hour or two until the Headmistress is through calming her guests, and decides to let them out of the Room of Containment," he said. "Although, to judge from the expression on Minerva's face when last I saw her, I shouldn't be surprised if that is slow in coming."

"But," Harry tried.

"If you'll excuse me now, there are two Quidditch teams waiting for me to allow them to leave the pitch." With that, Snape swept from the room in a flutter of black and grass-stained white.

"But," Harry called after him.

"But nothing, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said, placing a warm, tingling compress on his aching ribs. "It's not your problem, and if you don't want me to dose you into a coma for the next twenty four hours while these bone-set spells take effect, you'll keep it in mind."

"But they're my..." Only he couldn't finish that sentence, could he? Because they weren't, were they? It was like Snape had said -- none of the three was Harry's anything. Not anymore. And maybe never had been to begin with.

"Hush, dear," Pomfrey smiled, pressing a damp flannel into Harry's hand. "It'll be all right. You'll see. The Headmistress has been sorting out squabbling little children for more years now than you've been breathing. She knows what to do." And she patted his hands.

And Harry, not knowing what else he could do, nodded.

She smiled, and cast a couple of spells over him so fast that he could only gasp under the twinge. His side cramped, his vision sparkled, and Harry slumped back fully into the bed's embrace.

Pomfrey patted his hand one more time. "There's a good lad. Now you're to wipe that grass and mud off your face before you fall asleep. The Castle elves work hard enough without adding more to their lot." She conjured him a mirror, floating midair above his bed, and set a filled basin of water on the table beside his bed. "Just drop the flannel in here when you're done, dear. I'll be back in a few minutes to check on you."

Then she left. Harry didn't watch her go. He was too busy staring with utter, and abject horror into the mirror. Not at the scorch marks and burns, not at the spreading purple bruise across his side, not at his strangely darkened eyes, not at his blood-matted hair, not even at half the Quidditch turf smeared across the side of his face...

No, Harry was staring at the livid, startlingly purple bite mark Snape had left on his neck that morning. The perfect, unmistakable halfmoon shape of snaggled teeth, just where his throat curved down into his shoulder. Just where nobody could possibly have overlooked it.

"...fuck..." was all he could think of to say.


	11. This Corrosion

_To ~~Headmaster Black~~  
~~Headmaster Dippet~~  
~~Headmaster Dumbledore~~  
~~Headmaster MacGon... oh, Odd'sbollocks, whoever the swythe's in charge now!~~_

_To Whom It May Concern,_

_It has been brought to my attention that I am deceased._

_Likewise, it has been suggested to me that this has been the case for some time, which explains, I suppose, the rather shocking state of the female students' uniforms -- bared ankles, forsooth! Such a sight would have got any decent young witch ducked headfirst in the millpond in my day, and no mistake! However, I am informed now that such ... dress... is common, and accepted, and even sedate when compared to the student's weekend attire. Common, b'God! As are hand-held floo devices, tobacco cigarettes, extremely small minstrel machines, and now, some decidedly odd floating portkeys which patrol the halls of Hogwarts, abducting tenured (if deceased) professors for unexpected (and extremely informative) chats with the Sorting Hat, and a room full of paintings!_

_Quite a disappointing revelation, I must say. One should like to suppose that one's colleagues might see fit to inform one of such an event as the shuffling-off of one's accustomed mortal coil! In the spirit of academic dignity, if for no actual felicitous camaraderie. After all, the nature of one's tenure logically must rather drastically alter post-mortem, and no less the state of one's retirement pension. Why, I am not even certain, just now, whether the deposits made to my Gringotts vault since my expiration have been at the rate of my professorial pay, or at that of a pensioner. Nor, I assume, would I be quite capable of carrying my vault key to Gringotts in order to inquire in person._

_Quite vexing. Quite vexing indeed._

_Although it does shed new light on the rather glaringly lit staircase which has been appearing at random intervals in my office and quarters for the last several decades or so. In fact, it is my intention, upon the staircase's next manifestation, to conduct a suitable investigation as to its properties and eventual destination._

_To that end, I find it prudent to herewith terminate my employment at Hogwarts for the foreseeable future. I am certain that, times being so advanced and reasoned as the Sorting Hat and the portraits of several Headmasters Emeritus have informed me they are, whoever is in charge of this bloody place shan't have any trouble filling my post. Should such an accomplishment prove at all a challenge, I recommend the Bloody Baron, assuming you can get him to work for what amounts to no pay. He's been around the piste a time or two, after all, and ought to have no trouble reining in the shocking little monsters._

_I should say that I will not forget the time I have spent at Hogwarts, only it seems most likely that my memory and attention span are not what they used to be, so suffice it to say, I wish the old place and all who love her well.  
Sincerely,  
Professor Cuthbert Binns. Deceased.  
Master, History of Magic, member in good standing; Order of the Earbob, Knights of Llamfada, and Goblin Rescue and Resource Society._

 

~* October 15 *~

"So it _was_ the custody battle, then," Minerva mused, sipping the savage brew she served all her office visitors.

Shacklebolt shook his head, and spooned more sugar into his teacup. "Kidnapping attempt, regardless of motivation. Arturo de Castillo is well known on the Continent for a wizard on the edge of legality, according to the file the Spanish sent over. He's quite a collection of reprimands, fines, and court dates, which he apparently bought his way out of over the years. Can't say I blame his wife for leaving him, really."

"So we may expect more trouble from him until such time as he gets his son back under his control, I suppose." Snape growled. "Is the mother at least being looked after properly?" Because, after all, custody award or not, the father would be the next-closest blood kin should the boy's mother die unexpectedly.

"Save the teaching for the kids, Snape," Shacklebolt returned without heat. "We'd had her flat under guard for weeks now. That's how we caught Castillo, actually. He turned up there three days after you and Potter foiled the portkey attempt, and we snaffled him then."

"Extradition?" Minerva asked, as though the thought did not have her considering violence. Severus was not fooled, as he could see her foot twitching under the table, just as her barred tail would have been, had she been in her animagus form.

"Not this time." Shacklebolt's teeth flashed, smug and white. "Castillo made an illegal portkey on British soil, used it to try and kidnap an underage British citizen, injured a very popular British war hero doing it, _and_ we caught him right in Aberdeenshire. The Spaniards are more than happy to let us take care of him."

"And he hasn't so many convenient friends in the English legal system as the Spanish, I suppose."

"So he'll not only set foot in gaol this time, but there he'll stay, until his son is too old and well trained to kidnap off the Quidditch pitch." Shacklebolt nodded. "Though I still have to wonder how it is he managed to get that portkey Snitch into the place. Didn't you say he wasn't allowed on the grounds?"

"He's not," Minerva frowned, cutting off Severus' acid reply, "And he wasn't on them, either. I blacklisted Mr. Castillo the first night he tried to waltz into the Ravenclaw dormitory and take his son away. He must have used a compatriot to get his portkey close enough to release it."

"The guest list was closed," Snape reminded her, frowning.

Shacklebolt echoed his expression. "Which means we're still looking for an accomplice, then..."

"Not necessarily." And Merlin's bollocks, how Severus hated admitting that. It was no comfort to see the sharp, angry light come on in Minerva's grey eyes, either. She hadn't forgot Bartemius Crouch Jr.'s duplicity any more than had Severus.

"Polyjuice," she hissed, sitting straighter in her chair. "The guest invitations went out five weeks ago."

"Plenty of time," he ground, ignoring the speculative look the auror was passing back and forth between them. "I cannot say for certain that the wardings would be fooled by it, but I shall begin preparations to test that theory at once..." here he cut a glance at Shacklebolt. "Assuming that my potions clearance _has_ been restored to its pre-war status, that is."

Shacklebolt's long, silent look was answer enough. Severus looked away first, snarling a foul invective between his teeth as he fought down the urge to shout.

Minerva, however, seemed inclined to no such restraint, and pinned the Auror with a steely glare as she said, "You're a war hero, Severus. You've as much right to brew polyjuice as any other Hogwarts alumnus."

"Headmistress-"

"_And,_" she said over Shacklebolt's protest, "given your current status as co-executor of School Security, I see no legitimate impediment to supplying you with all of the ingredients you will require to do your job. I'm certain the Ministry of Magic will agree that the safety of our pupils is no less of a concern in peacetime than it was in war."

The Auror chuckled, and gave up with a rueful shake of his head. "I'm certain you'll have no trouble making your point, ma'am," he allowed. "But I won't pretend it wouldn't grease the wheels just a bit if I were able to take back a basic outline of the spell structure you're working with here. The Ministry would be much more inclined to overlook the questionably legal potions and spell work going on here, if I could assure them that the overall warding was something they could recognize, and not of the Dark."

"Dark _shielding?_" Snape let his tone express the rest of the insult.

Shacklebolt spread his hands, as though helpless. "Everyone's considering possibilities now that they never did before. Your security system doesn't seem to follow the template of any classic warding, and both you and Potter were known for unorthodox methods during the war. People just want to be sure of the place they're sending their children, is all."

"Shacklebolt, kindly refrain from being anymore condescending than you really must," Severus ground out, setting aside his teacup with a clatter. "You and I both know damned well that this is really only a ploy to get Potter under the Ministry yoke, and me back in gaol!"

"Snape, don't be para-"

"Gentlemen," Minerva's crisp disapproval cut through the building diatribe like a claymore from on high. "I couldnae care less why the Ministry wants to have a peek up our kilt, it will not happen!" She poured more tea, and set a lemon round to float on the top, her lips tight and angry as though she'd bitten it already. "Kissing the Ministry's boot is no more my job than it was Albus', and the lot of your meddlesome bureaucrats may come and bark for it themselves, for all the good it may do them."

Shacklebolt's eyebrow went up at that. "You saying, then, that you don't trust the Ministry with the details on your fancy new security spells, Headmistress?"

"Not unless you force me to spell it out in as many words, I'll not." Severus never quite learned how it was that her face could go from furious to smug, without so much as a twitch of change. And people called _him_ snarky? "However, the fact remains that until Mssrs. Snape and Potter have registered their work with an official from the Spell Patent office, under protection of an Unbreakable Oath of secrecy, the details of Hogwarts' wardings shall not be subject to any Ministry scrutiny."

And Shacklebolt, looking for all the world as though he were enjoying his verbal trouncing, settled back into his chair with a sidelong grin. "Duly noted. However, you _do_ realize that unless you can explain the sudden relocations last week, I'm going to have to levy a fine for illegal portkey creation."

Severus rolled his eyes, but strangely, Minerva only smiled. "Now Kingsley, as a member of the Order, don't you think-"

Shacklebolt's smile hardened just a trifle. "Now, don't you say you won't trust me on one hand, then ask me to trust you on the other, Minerva McGonagall," he warned.

Severus eyed her closely, and rolled his eyes again, as he actually caught the damned woman _twinkling!_ "That isn't what I'm-" she began.

But Severus had seen enough. He stood up, and brushed the nonexistent crumbs from his lap. "We'll pay it."

Both Auror and Headmistress looked to him in confusion. "What?" Shacklebolt asked.

"The fine, you ninny," Severus growled. "Whatever it amounts to, we'll pay it, and just move on. It's better than sitting here watching you two flirt over the matter."

"Severus!" Minerva was scandalized.

"Flirt?" Shacklebolt was horrified.

Severus, however, was still fed up. "We will pay the damned fine," he dragged them back to the important topic ruthlessly. "Face it, Shacklebolt, during the war, the one thing that cost us the most was our inability to be certain our enemies stayed out of this school. We even had enemies on Hogwarts' own Board of Governors, for Merlin's sake. We cannot make that mistake again, and you know it!"

To his credit, the man did not attempt to dispute Severus' point, although he couldn't resist contending, "We're not at war anymore, Severus."

"That is no reason for negligence," he maintained.

Shacklebolt smirked. "You sound like Moody."

"Bite your tongue in twain."

"Only hurts 'cause it's true," Shacklebolt grinned to reply. Then he turned back to Minerva before Severus could give that statement the answer it deserved. "So you're not even telling the Order about this, are you?"

"Come back here _as_ an Order of the Phoenix member instead of an Auror, Kingsley Shacklebolt," Minerva put in, "and you might get more information. However, the Ministry you're representing today has a long row to hoe before it will have proven itself by Hogwarts' standards." And there, good God in Heaven, the woman _twinkled_ again.

Severus grunted in disgust, but Shacklebolt only laughed ruefully and rubbed a hand over his bald, dark skull. "Fine, fine. But it's Harry who'll have to pay the fee, seeing as how he was the one visibly involved in the incident. And it'll have to be him that signs my incident report."

Minerva snorted, and set her teacup aside. "Incident report indeed! As though the Prophet hasn't already posted three stories on what happened here!"

"Any of those stories been accurate?" he asked.

Severus folded his arms over his breast. "We _are_ referring to the same newspaper, are we not?" he grumbled.

"Honestly, Kingsley," Minerva interrupted again. "You're wasted on petty trifles like this. Why don't you give some more consideration to my offer? Would it really be so untenable?" Severus felt his shoulders tighten, his breath shorten in a flash of anger-- because he refused to let it be hurt.

The Auror had the grace to cut an abashed glance Severus' way before answering. "The offer's... interesting, but I really am satisfied with my current-"

"Nonsense! The benefits and pay are more than equal to anything the Ministry is offering, and-"

"And if you hold out for hazard pay for the trauma involved in teaching these little imbeciles to defend against the Dark Arts," Severus managed to say through his teeth, "it might even be worth it."

Both looked at him, and he refused to curse his temper or his tongue. He knew why the position would never be his again, just as he knew why it had never been offered him but for the one, single year in which Albus had been slowly, steadily dying. He knew all the whys and the wherefores of it; he was a convicted murderer, for all he'd been released on Time Served for his service to the Order. He was still suspected by many to be a traitor unpunished, but DAMN it all to the muggle's Hell if he would pretend to like the situation just to make other people feel better about discussing the matter before him!

"Severus," Minerva began, her face all contrition. Over her shoulder, Albus' portrait, awake for once, regarded him sadly.

He closed his fist and his teeth, and turned his back on the pair of them. "Potter was in the staff Tea Room last I saw," he snapped, striding to the door. "I'll go and tell him he's wanted." The door, however, did not yield to his shove.

"Headmistress," he warned.

"I shall expect you both after supper, Severus," she said, and for all her efficient, businesslike tone, she made no effort to conceal the regret beneath it. "The blacklist wants alteration-"

"Which, as Headmistress, you've full authority to enact, without asking the permission of your bloody contractors!" he snapped. "So you may spare me your efforts to make me feel 'involved'!"

"Snape, that's a bit-"

"And you," he shot a scathing glare at Shacklebolt as he slipped his wand from his sleeve. "Stop equivocating, and take the damned job. Nobody actually believes you're fool enough not to want it!"

And with that, he apparated.

 

~*~

The spell sphere appeared in the hallway not half a breath after Severus himself did. He didn't bother stopping to acknowledge it -- let Potter hold his hand out like the damned things were pet birds. Severus knew they had the alacrity to read his magical signature and allow the Sorting Hat to verify his right to apparate on the school grounds, no matter how he might try to avoid it. He had better things to do than to coddle the damned things!

He felt a staticky brush as the spell sphere nudged the back of his head, and he could almost hear the ragged old hat saying his name as his hair lifted at the touch; _Well well, Severus Snape... what a puzzle you are..._

"Enough," he snarled, striding toward the staff room in a swirl of angry black. "You, sphere. Is Potter still in there?" The spell sphere, still flickering with sparks of Slytherin green, bobbed into his view, then zipped, hummingbird quick, to the end of the hall, where the door stood a little bit open. There it bounced midair, flashing red and gold. Severus banished the sphere before it could take the notion of fetching the Gryffindor out.

He could hear the voices as he drew near, low and tense, radiant with hostility and mistrust. He softened his footfalls in instinctual reaction. Potter's voice was a growl, blunted and stiff as though shoved through locked teeth. The reply came sidelong, sly and haughty, wielding smug amusement like a slap to the face. Severus stopped just beside the open door, peered between the hinges, and clenched his fists.

Changes to the blacklist, indeed! The mangy old bint must have back-timed the order, curse her!

"Go on then," Draco Malfoy laughed, lounging insouciantly against the tea table. "Summon one of your little drooble things if you don't believe I've the right to be here."

Severus couldn't see Potter's face, but the bloodless clench of his fingers around his wand told the story plainly. "Just answer the question," he gritted. "Tell me how you got around the blacklist."

Malfoy's feline smirk didn't waver as he made an obscene show of eating a cucumber sandwich. "Old Mac slapped the sorting hat onto my head when I flooed in to her office this morning. It gave me a nice little telling off, said I was a naughty boy, and that was that." He licked the butter from his fingers with a pointed, pink tongue. "All fences mended, all wrongs forgiven. I love that about Hogwarts, don't you?"

Severus forced himself to take a silent breath, but inside his head, he was cursing to the depths of hell whoever in the world first decided to tell Minerva McGonagall what a Time Turner was.

"You still haven't said what you're doing here, Malfoy," Potter said after a long, cold silence, his rigidly braced shoulders softening into a weary droop as he looked away from the blond's teasing. Severus could see the curve of Potter's chin past the too-long hair, and the ridge of his cheek, flush with blood beneath the shadow of his spectacles, the sweep of his girlish eyelashes as he glared at his ex-lover's shadow.

"Apprenticeship, _Harry,_" Malfoy made the name a curl of sound, like a caress. Potter didn't flinch at it, but the tension returned to his shoulders, and Malfoy would have been a fool to miss how well he was getting under the idiot's skin. "I've decided to take my Mastery, you see, and my Preceptor wanted me to serve my internship here at the school."

_Meaning that you've run out of money, worked through your benefactors, and your mother bought you this commission to try and wrest you off the teat at last._ Severus thought, recalling Narcissa's desperate attempt to land the brat in Severus' lap during his sixth year, and her steadfast refusal to return to England after the war was over. Draco must have gotten desperate indeed, in order to consider _working_ to support himself.

"You're seeking a Mastery," Potter's laugh was a bitter thing. "And that's what you were doing at Hogwarts last week? Because I know damned well you weren't on the guest list for the Quidditch game." Potter caught up an apple from the tea table, polished it ferociously on his trouser leg. "So you were setting it all up with Professor Slughorn, and once you'd dropped off the candied pineapple and mead, you decided to pick a fight with Ron because he was handy?"

Severus had to work to suppress a snort. Horace Slughorn had never trusted Draco farther than the end of his belly. No amount of money, praise, or Turkish Delight would convince him to take a Malfoy for Tyro. No, there was only one instructor at Hogwarts who might do so.

"No, I lost my interest in junior league Quidditch when you stopped playing, Harry," Malfoy smirked. "Though, if I'd known I'd get a look at your arse on a broom again, I might have been there for more than just a favour for a friend. Thank Merlin for sports photographers though, hey? I'll have to save up for your calendar spread."

Potter made a disgusted noise, and bit into the apple as though he wished it were Malfoy's skull. The blond grinned at his angry chewing, and took another sandwich. "I'm not Mastering in potions, anyway. Arithmancy's more my thing. Professor Sinistra remembered my student work here, and was really quite eager to take me on."

Meaning, of course, that Sinistra had wanted the money. Then again given the state of the Malfoy fortune after the Ministry had finished punishing it for Lucius and Draco's indiscretions, it was more likely that she'd been more tempted by the rumours of the fabulous estate library not having been _entirely_ snapped up by the aurors. No Slytherin with a position to protect would risk the sort of scandal this fey creature was capable of for mere _money._

Harry's snort suggested he felt the same. "Well, I guess she's earned herself a toy if she wants one. And it won't be the first time you'll have whored yourself for services rendered, will it?"

Severus didn't miss the flash of rage the truth sparked in Malfoy's grey eyes, but to his surprise, the boy choked it down. The only trace of it in his grin of reply was a flash of more teeth than usual. "Confessing to whoremongering now, are you, Harry?" he tsked. "What _will_ your devoted followers think?"

"What followers?" Potter said through his teeth. The hand holding the apple hung at his side, shadowed by the tea table and the drape of his robes. Malfoy might not have noticed the fine tremour in that hand, or the bloodless clench of the knuckles around the apple's smooth sides, but Severus did, and it made his lip curl.

"Oh, that's right, you don't care about your devoted fans, do you?" Malfoy made a show of remembering, one manicured finger tapping his full bottom lip. "You don't give a wet slap for the adoration of all the people you saved from Certain Doom. And if they think they can tell you what to do, or who to _fuck,_" he leaned forward, blatantly invading Potter's body space under pretence of reaching around him for a teacup. Potter didn't flinch aside. "... well, they can go bark for it, can't they-" He cut off abruptly, freezing as Potter's hand closed around his wrist. He might have looked off-balance in body, but the hungry gleam in his eyes made it plain that Draco Malfoy was exactly where he wanted to be.

"Who I _fuck_," Potter said carefully, "isn't your concern either, Malfoy." Then he used the trapped hand to push the other man back a step, and tossed the gleaming apple back onto the table. It rolled onto the pale hollow his teeth had made, and stopped as Potter turned on his heel to storm away.

Malfoy's laugh stopped him cold. "That's because you _aren't_ fucking anybody, Harry! Come on, take a look at you -- tense, pissy, shabby and shaggy." Malfoy sidled close behind Potter, threaded his fingers into the dark locks as though he'd a right to it.

Severus wanted to shatter Malfoy's fingers for the sheer presumption, but Potter didn't throw him off and hex him, or put his fist into that pointed little chin, like the proper hooligan he was at heart. Potter just stood there, eyes closed, jaw locked hard, fists balled at his sides, while Malfoy fingered the collar of his sensible, plain blue robes and smirked in his ear. "You've got nobody to dress up for have you? Nobody who cares how you look, because nobody's looking at you properly. At least, nobody's seeing _to_ you properly, are they?"

"I am not available. Leave me alone." At last, Potter shook off Malfoy's petting, but Severus noticed he didn't go far.

Malfoy noticed too. "Oh, come on now. Anybody can tell you're down to polishing your own... fruit." He pressed against Potter's back again, both hands curled around the rigid arms, to cup his shoulders. He rested his chin on his own knuckles, and laughed. "Not that I blame you though. Who've you got that's worth shagging around here? Old Mac's all but fossilized; Snape hates your guts, and would only sleep with you if he could strangle you at the same time. And you're too stuck up to even look twice at the students." He wrinkled his nose. "Not that I blame you for that. Spots, hormones, and homework. Ick."

"Draco..."

"Anyhow, Weasley the Second's the only remotely toothsome bit around here, if you ignore the ginger hair and speckles all over him. Well... you don't seem to mind speckled ginges, but I have it on good authority he doesn't lean your way." Malfoy dropped a kiss onto Potter's scarlet cheek. "You're positively hard up, and we both know it."

And now, surely, Potter would throw him off. Surely the fool would tire of being toyed with, and defend his bloody boundaries! Surely he'd _do_ something, instead of standing there, eyes and fists closed tight as a child, hiding from the monster in the wardrobe.

"Get. Off." Potter's teeth did not part around the words, but he did not move a hair.

Malfoy laughed, and slipped back to the tea table, unconcerned. "Oh, I will, Harry. Once you've got over your wounded ego, and admitted that I'm the best you've ever had."

Potter laughed, a bitter sound, which went uncomfortably well with the hard brightness in his eyes. "You wish."

"_You_ wish, Potter," Malfoy replied as he poured. "But you know, I'm feeling generous today. Come and help me move into my rooms after dinner tonight, and I'll cut you off a piece. Help you remember why you want what I've got to offer you."

Potter's hand curled around his upper arm, as though he were cold. But Severus knew what lay under that stroking thumb, and how unnerved the wretch must be if he needed such a caress to help him remember what the bloody tattoo said.

This, Severus decided, had gone on long enough. He backed several steps down the hall, and then strode loudly into the lounge, throwing the door against the wall with a careless bang. "Potter," he barked, noting that Malfoy had managed to get across the lounge, and seated in one of the window-side chairs in the few seconds' warning he'd had. "You're wanted in the Headmistress's office."

"Now?" Potter asked, eyes flickering with pathetic gratitude.

Severus sneered. "Idiot. Would I have come all the way down to fetch you myself if she wished to see you sometime next week?" Malfoy made a quiet snicker into his teacup, which Severus ignored, lest he give in to the desire to accidentally cast something, disfiguring, permanent, and socially embarrassing on him. "And you'll need your key," he added, striding to the tea table and pouring himself a cup.

"My key... Oh. Gringotts, I suppose." Potter rubbed at his neck, covering his surprise as Severus nodded curtly. "Anything else?"

"A new rank of testing on the apparative wards," Severus improvised, giving in to the desire to wipe a bit of the smug off Draco Malfoy's face. "I intend to begin after dinner tonight, and I suggest you make an effort to be prompt when you join me."

Potter's eyes narrowed, and he flicked a glance toward the swinging door. "I'll be on time," he managed, the corner of his mouth barely twitching. "Try and remember it's not a bloody detention this time though." Then he strode out the door, took two steps, and apparated with an echoing crack.

Severus added milk to his tea, and didn't watch him go.

From the corner of his eye, Severus noted Malfoy's impatient stare, as focused and greedy for notice as ever he'd been in his potions classes. But Severus knew better than to mistake that hungry vanity for attention, or willingness to listen. After all, each of the boy's worst mistakes, from his obsessive rivalry with Potter, to his acceptance of Voldemort's mark, and attempts to murder poor, doomed Albus Dumbledore, Draco had made after Severus had tried to warn him against them.

A shame, really, that he couldn't have put as much effort into his education while he'd been at Hogwarts, as he did into competing with Potter, Severus mused as he examined the tray of biscuits and pastries the castle elves had set out. Draco Malfoy had come to the school a scion of ancient, and powerful blood, as ripe with power and potential as his father before him had been. But in perception, cunning, and common sense, Lucius' only son was curiously bereft.

At twenty-five years old, Lucius Malfoy had gained a position of leverage on half the Wizengamot, survived the first downfall of his Lord without so much as a slap on the wrist, secured his legacy with a son, and amassed engines of wealth sufficient to ensure that any work he did from that day forth would be a matter of entertainment value.

Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, faced his twenty fifth birthday with his most noteworthy accomplishment of cunning, courage, and resolve being that he gave a band of murders unrestricted access to his classmates, and thriceover failed to murder a dying man. His only visible marks in the world, a bulge in Zabini-nee-Parkinson's belly, a drift of hysterical headlines during his trial... and one ugly tattoo on Potter's arm.

Lucius must be cursing in Avalon, even now.

And what was worse, someone had eaten all the damned scones.

Severus finished his tea just as Malfoy's tolerance for being overlooked came to an end. He gave a disgusted sigh, set aside his own teacup with a loud clatter, and shoved himself out of the chair, his pale cheeks flushed with temper. But before he could unleash whatever rant he'd prepared, another crack sounded down the corridor, and Charles Weasley put his head into the Staff Lounge.

"Snape," Weasley said, glancing around the room with a frown, his blue eyes skating over Malfoy with barely a flicker. "I thought I'd find Harry down here."

"You might have done, had you come looking before the Headmistress sent for him," Severus allowed, setting aside his empty teacup. "Drinking free tea, and wasting his time with inane trivialities," and here at last, Severus looked squarely at Malfoy, "as he usually does when there's relevant work to be done."

Weasley frowned, but Malfoy's temper snapped first. He straightened to his full height, and tugged his embroidered sleeves straight, eyes flashing as he hissed, "Lovely to see _you_ again, too, Professor Snape!"

"Oi!" Weasley grunted as Draco shoved past him. "Prat!" Then he glanced back to Snape, his blue eyes wary as ever. "What's his problem then?"

"Problem?" Severus mused, taking up the apple Potter had dropped. The bite mark had left a damp ring on the cloth, though it felt merely cool against his palm when Severus turned the fruit to examine his reflection in the bright curve of its skin; stark contrast of dark and pale, all harsh angles and unforgiving proportions, crowned with a nose nobody could be lucky enough to forget. Not remotely, as Malfoy had said, toothsome.

He dug his crooked teeth into the apple, the reflection, and the thought. It gave with a very satisfying crunch, and a burst of sweetness across his tongue as he shrugged. "I noticed nothing out of his common way."

~*~

Severus was actually rather surprised to see Potter turn up at dinner, knowing that Malfoy would be lying in wait for him.

But then again, after his latest Quidditch accident the Headmistress had made Potter promise he would make himself visible to the students. She clearly hoped that seeing Potter alive and intact at Great Hall mealtimes would quell the lurid rumours of his death, dismemberment, and disfiguration currently making the rounds of the fifth through seventh form dormitories.

And, after all, what was an excruciating exposure to a remorseless ex lover against the weight of a casual promise when a Gryffindor's exalted 'word' was involved? Severus sneered and shook his head. The wretch ought to have just picked up fish and chips while down in Diagon, and skipped the meal altogether. Let the Headmistress and Malfoy be disappointed, and to the devil with their expectations.

But no, not only had Potter dragged himself into the Great Hall looking as though he was going to face his own personal Dementor, he'd done so late enough that the only place left to sit was the chair between Draco Malfoy and Kingsley Shacklebolt at the far end of the table. Severus might have saved him a better seat, had he imagined the idiot actually intended to show up at all -- imagine it; a Gryffindor who didn't know when to skive off. Really, Potter had only himself to blame.

Still, one might think he would make _some_ effort to do more justice to the supper than merely to cut it into shreds and push it about his plate. It was an excellent roast of beef, after all, and for once the elves had managed to serve vegetables alongside which were al dente, rather than boiled until one could drink them through a straw. But Potter showed far more interest in his teacup than in his meal, and in half an hour's fretting, he'd managed to put exactly one forkful of potato into his pouting mouth.

The ninny.

Malfoy, on the other hand, was very well aware of the impact his presence was making on Potter. Under the fierce eye of Shacklebolt, and Sinistra, he managed to preserve decorum -- never quite stepping over the line of proper comportment, however close he leaned to it. But the rising flush on Potter's neck and the white clench of his fingers on his cutlery made it plain that Malfoy's idea of dinnertime conversation was rife with innuendo. And as usual, Potter's heart was on his sleeve.

Given his choice, and time to get off only one spell, Severus realized he didn't know which of the two he'd hex -- Malfoy for being so shameless, or Potter for making it so easy.

"Severus," McGonagall's voice intruded on his reverie, low and amused as she leaned close to pass him the salt he hadn't asked for. "I don't know what that roast has done to offend you, but I promise you it's already dead. There's no need to vivisect it."

Startled, Severus glanced down at his plate, then scowled harder, and stabbed a very tiny piece of beef onto his fork. "Small bites aid digestion," he said.

"And do they aid in attentiveness as well then?" the old cat smirked. "I've been talking to ye for-"

"Decades now, yes." Severus attacked a bit of parsnip. "It does take a fair bit of concentration to winnow out the rare point of sense from under the brogue, you know. You burr more as a woman than a cat."

Her eyes went wide for a moment, and Severus couldn't help imagining pricked whiskers, and surprised stripes of black and grey across her forehead as she gave a laugh. "Why you cheeky- ought I to take five points from Slytherin for that, Master Snape?"

Severus glanced down the table just in time to see Malfoy drop his knife onto the floor, and instead of retrieving it with an _accio,_ he pushed back his chair and all but climbed into Potter's lap to get the damned thing back. Potter sat stock-still, as though petrified, teacup hovering halfway to his lips.

"Why stop at five," Severus growled. Then he resolutely turned his attention to the Headmistress. "Did you wish to tell me something in particular then, or were you just crushing small talk and consonants in your throat for your own amusement?"

"I _can_ transfigure that tongue of yours into a haddock, you know," she warned, calmly dipping a biscuit into her whiskey-laced tea. "But don't let that stop you being a right tit if you simply must do." She took his derisive snort for acquiescence, and continued. "You've only your own self to blame for getting a shock over Malfoy, you know. I did try and give you and Harry fair warning."

He looked up, incredulous. "Warning is useless unless it helps one to actually _avoid_ an untenable outcome," he said. "Otherwise, there is no difference between 'prior warning', and proactive gloating."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Severus, really."

"Do you mean," he challenged, "to try and tell me that if Potter or I had said we did not want Malfoy here, you'd have kept him out?"

Her grey eyes were sober with regret. "Yes. I might have done, had ye been able to help me find a reason to deny him entrance." She glanced down the table, to where Malfoy was refilling Potter's teacup. "Acquitted, he may have been in the court of the Wizengamot, but I find myself unable to quite forget who it was that let those monsters into the school all those years ago."

_Nor can I._ Severus kept the thought to himself, chewing to disguise any trace of the emotion his face might have shown.

Then abruptly, McGonagall shook her head. "But see here, you've gone and distracted me. My news wasn't about young Malfoy at all. I've had a letter from Remus Lupin."

Severus didn't choke. He didn't even stop chewing, counting the press of his teeth until he reached twenty. Then he swallowed. "Have you?"

"I have," she replied, amused. "He asked about you. Seems he's taken a fancy to come for a visit soon, and he wanted to ask if I thought it would be an imposition on you."

That time he couldn't suppress his start. "An imposition?" he asked. "On _me?_"

"Well, you have been known to be somewhat less than welcoming to him in years past, you know, Severus. And I cannot say I'd blame him wanting to be sure he'd not find himself on the wrong side of your tongue while he was here visiting Harry." She nibbled at her biscuit, the delicate gesture as full of reproach as any glower. "I understand you don't care for the man, but if his coming here for a few days will be a problem for you, I should like to know about it before you go and cause a scene in public. It will spare Remus the price of an international portkey, and us all an unpleasant scene that way."

But Severus' gaze had slid past her, back to the end of the table, where Malfoy lounged in his chair, as insouciant as though he were drinking brandy in a whorehouse, not sitting the high table at a school full of children. The musteline cretin was laughing, while Shacklebolt, and Weasley beyond him looked on in confused distaste, and Harry...

Potter was white as chalk, but he was no longer still. With careful, precise movements, he set aside first fork, then knife, the balance of the utensils in his hands making Severus wonder just how much willpower Potter was exerting to stop himself burying one of them in Malfoy's eye. Then he draped his serviette over the ruins of his meal, pushed back his chair, and stood.

Malfoy, still laughing, caught at his arm. Potter wrenched free of his grip with a savage twist. Severus dropped his fork and knife onto his plate, and was reaching for his own serviette when Minerva's uncompromising grip closed over his own wrist. "Severus," she said. "Albus may have accepted your sullen silences as agreement, but I am not so willing to assume compliance. I'll have your promise on this, and I'll have it now if you please. Will you behave yourself, or nae?"

Shacklebolt said something that made Weasley laugh, and Malfoy's head whip 'round. Potter took advantage of the distraction to escape. Since the Great Hall was one of the non-apparative zones, like the bathrooms, dormitories, and teacher's rooms, he had to rely on his feet to carry him, but it seemed to Severus that he could not have made a faster exit if he'd been astride his broom.

Malfoy cast a look after him, but when he noticed the students watching, elected to remain and trade barbs with the Auror and Care of Magical Creatures professor. Severus blew out a sigh.

"Minerva, for all I care, you may invite the Werewolf to set up housekeeping in Gryffindor Tower." He looked down at his plate, considered for a moment, then reclaimed his fork and took another bite. The roast beef really was excellent, even cold and cut into tiny bites.

"And you expect I'll be put off with that, do you?" she asked, shaking her head. "You're a piece of work, Severus Snape, but I'll have your word on this, and I'll have it properly."

He sighed, watching Weasley set aside his flatware and leave the table. "Very well, Minerva. When Lupin arrives, I shall greet him as befits a bosom brother. I shall clasp him close, and shake his hand, and smile upon him warmly, with never a harsh word between us. I shall buy him butterbeer or firewhiskey or blood of innocents or whatever he's drinking nowadays, and we shall laugh together like the oldest of friends."

"Severus, really."

"Yes, really. I shall be as pleasant as a picnic, Headmistress. Shall I kiss him with tongue when he arrives, just to prove my good intent?"

That won a smile. "I think not. The point of this rather _was_ to avoid unpleasant scenes after all, and I'm not sure his heart could take such a shock. Common courtesy will do, if you cannot be actually friendly."

Malfoy stood up, stretched his hands together over his head, and sauntered toward the door. Unlike Potter and Weasley though, he took the long way, through the student tables, clearly pleased with the wake of whispers that marked his passage. Severus watched him go, and wished heartily that he weren't under the Headmistress' eye just then -- a shoelace-entangling hex would do nicely to ground that swanning exit.

But alas, it was not to be. Severus turned his attention back to Minerva as the door shut behind Malfoy's exit.

"I have already declared my intentions toward the werewolf, woman," he shrugged. "If they do not meet with your approval, then you must do as you see fit, but just now I should not find myself particularly troubled if you chose to allow Lupin to run naked about the campus every night, so long as you saw to it he drank his Wolfsbane."

She choked a laugh through her nose, and belatedly sought to hide it in her teacup. Counting the victory for what it was worth, Severus returned his attention to his meal.

Potter didn't need rescuing. If the scruffy wretch hadn't developed enough self-preservation instinct by now to kick Malfoy to the kerb, then there simply was no hope for him. There was absolutely no need whatsoever for Severus to leave a perfectly decent dinner, and hie off across the grounds. None. Potter would simply present himself in Severus' quarters once the dinner hour was over. They'd lay out the plans for the polyjuice tests, and then they'd retire for a drink, as usual.

Well. It was fair, perhaps, to anticipate that they both might drink a bit _more_ than usual, given the circumstances of the day. Their shared evenings had been ending in drunkenness less and less often, as their work had progressed, and as Severus grew accustomed to the idea of letting Potter seduce him. Still, a single night's relapse into bottled oblivion was imminently forgivable, all things considered.

That thought kept him at table all the way through pudding.


	12. Can't Find My Way Home

~* October 15 *~

Slughorn cornered him after dinner, huffing and waddling like a landed walrus, until a capriciously inconvenient staircase cut off Severus' escape and allowed the man to catch up.

Ingredients. _Of course._ Restricted ones. _Naturally._ Which convicted felons -- even pardoned convicted felons -- could not get licensing to purchase. _Who'd have thought it?_ Which would be positively crucial in the brewing of Polyjuice potion, which, _ Need one even ask?_ the corpulent Potions instructor simply hadn't the time to brew himself. Not with exams to give, and homework to grade, and lessons to plan, and roughly a ton of candied sodding pineapple to gobble down in between meetings of his club of pet sluglings. _Just so._

Severus managed not to strangle the wretch, though he was not actually certain how. Perhaps it was the fact that, following Slughorn down to his cabinet, they were never actually alone for long enough that he could manage it. And obliviating that many students would surely have attracted the Hat's attention. Especially if a Professor's life force suddenly snuffed out while Severus just happened to be standing next to him. Or perhaps it had more to do with Severus doubting he could actually get his hands properly around the man's throat. A good throttling was simply not something one left to a spell. No satisfaction.

The supply cabinet was in a deplorable state; bottles out of order, labels turned round, dust everywhere -- one would think Slughorn hadn't the first idea what to do with a detentioneer. Only really, Severus couldn't remember Slughorn actually _giving_ detentions, even back when Potter, Pettigrew and Black were making a game of blowing up their assignments in increasingly spectacular fashion throughout their sixth form. The sycophantic idiot was more afraid of being disliked by a potential future contact than that a flying shard of cauldron might lacerate one of the few students who were actually there to _work._

Damn him.

Severus fingered the nearly-forgotten scar behind his right ear, and suppressed a sneeze as Slughorn accio'ed yet another phial from the upper shelves, and showered them both with dust. The ladder, a solid and sturdy veteran of Severus' own tenure as Potions Master, leaned in the far corner; cobwebbed with disuse, and looking strangely fragile when measured against Slughorn's girth.

"No, that's..." Slughorn squinted, then puffed more dust from the jar's label. "Hmm. Bundimun eyes. And quite gone off, as well. Wonder who could have put them up there."

"Someone who sorted ingredients alphabetically, perhaps?" Severus ground through his teeth. "The shelf _is_ labeled "B", after all."

"Alphabetically?" Slughorn blinked. "Why would anyone do that? I taught all my children to sort by frequency of use, Severus. It's far quicker when one is-"

"Quicker? And we're still here an hour after we began searching for the damned boomslang skin for what reason, precisely?"

The man chuckled, and set the desiccated bundimun eyes back on the shelf. "Oh, now you're exaggerating, Severus. It's never been an hour."

"It bloody well has been if one counts in the twenty minute detour you took to the Slytherin dormitory to chat up McHarrison for information on his uncle in Romania," Severus snarled.

"Oh, tosh. McHarrison's uncle is doing some stunning work on the new vampire intermarriage laws over there, and he sent me a monograph to review just last week. It was only polite, you know, to tender my thanks." Severus was positive he saw a smirk buried under that moustache as Slughorn accio'ed down another flask.

"Blast politeness, I did not come all the way down here to oversee your damned social-" A sneeze shattered the rest, and two more followed hard on the heels of the first. By the time Severus managed to stop, Slughorn was smirking at him, and holding out the grimy bottle.

"There's the lacewings then," he said. "The boomslang skin will be just nearby. You're not taking a cold now, are you Severus?" he asked as he turned back to the shelves.

"Dust," Severus managed to say.

"Only I do worry, my boy, what with Our Harry's terrible health, and you working so closely with him every day..."

Potter was, as far as Severus had been able to ascertain, as healthy as a hippogriff. "I was brewing my own remedies by third form," he sneered. "I assure you, my health is in no danger from anything Potter may be carrying."

"Well then, I do wish you'd brew some up remedies for Our Harry," Slughorn's voice turned peevish as he shoved jars about. "He's been in a terrible state for months now. He's hardly had the energy to come and take the occasional tea with his old professor, let alone come down for any of my little get-togethers. And I just know he'd be charmed by some of the friends who come down for them, and they by him. Quite the star, Our Harry is." A glance. "When he's feeling well, that is."

The temptation to tell the old fraud that Potter was really suffering from a dose of the Italian Disease, given to him by an infamous ex-lover who need not be named because he'd just recently come to work there, was so profound it nearly overwhelmed Severus. Just as startling, however, was the fact that he did not do it.

In fact, for some reason, he let the stunningly perfect opportunity for an insult of epic proportions pass him by entirely, even though he thought of not less than six biting comments he could make while the expectant silence wore on. He made none of them, and didn't even have to bite his tongue in order to resist.

Oh second thought, perhaps he _was_ coming down with something.

Slughorn took another hour to find the boomslang skin. They were interrupted by students twice -- one of whom actually had the nerve to hand in late homework right there in the supply cabinet -- by Peeves once, and finally by Mrs. Norris, who chased a rat around the room twice, and tripped Slughorn into a shelf. From the top of said shelf -- the one Severus had labeled 'B', when it had been _his_ supply cabinet -- toppled the coveted amber jar.

Severus caught the boomslang skin from the air, and made good his escape before Slughorn managed to finish dusting off his capacious backside.

 

~*~

However when Severus got to his quarters, Potter was not there. Indeed, from the chill in the air despite the fireplace's enthusiastic roar, nobody had been into Severus' rooms since that morning. He twitched his wand from his sleeve, cast a quick barrage of spells to be certain -- but the wards, the visorbs, and the castle elves all bore it out; Potter had not come down at all. He had not even knocked on the door.

A black outrage bubbled up inside Severus as he considered the still, empty rooms -- an outrage as familiar and heavy as the Death Eater robes he'd burned upon his release from Azkaban.

Severus Snape did. Not. Get. Stood. Up.

Not by that myopic, sulking, idiotic spawn of James Potter, and _never_ for a snide, simpering whelp like Draco-sodding-Malfoy! Not even Lucius, for all his vanity, had ever dared offer Severus such disrespect! To simply not appear, not leave notice, not send word, not acknowledge that the obligation had even existed! Not even _Voldemort_ had been so crass! To be made to wait was bad enough, but this... this blatant disregard was beyond too much!

He would not have it.

Severus summoned a bobble with a slash of his wand. "Take me to the hallway outside Draco Malfoy's chambers," he snarled to the sphere. The hallway was as close as he could get, really, and he was in no mood to waste time hunting about. Let the half-naked bastards lurch apart and try to equivocate when he blasted the door in -- the better that he might blister the hide off them both!

The bobble sparkled briefly white, then settled onto his shoulder, and jerked him inside out. When the world reformed around him, Severus was standing in the main atrium, at the base of the one stationary staircase in the entire castle.

"Wretched thing," Severus snarled as the glass sphere drifted up from his shoulder. "I ordered you to-" Then it bobbed into the shadow of the staircase's buttress, its glow lighting the close, dark space so that Severus could just make out the corner of a portrait.

Oh.

Clearly Minerva hadn't felt overly generous in assigning Malfoy his rooms; that chamber wouldn't seem much bigger than a cupboard to the scion of that ancient and wealthy clan.

The portrait was dusty, pockmarked, and rather pathetic, as was the young witch within it. She didn't want to tell Severus anything, of course, but she'd clearly not been a witch of solid nerve. Her courage failed at the first threat of _incendio._ No, sir, Mr. Malfoy was not in, and no, sir, he hadn't come down to his room after dinner was over, and yes, sir, she swore it on Merlin's tomb, not even for a moment. Please, sir, have a little pity, she was only doing her-

Severus left her to simper to the shadows.

He hadn't dismissed the bobble, so it was still hovering about the atrium, lost, or bored, or possibly just in whatever passed for sleep in its crude semi-sentience. He tapped its side with his wand, and it spun wildly until the chime faded. "Take me to where Harry Potter is," he told it.

The bobble hovered, spun about a few times, as though perplexed. Severus bit back the urge to try and smash the damned thing. It would only shock him if he tried. "Take me as close to where Harry Potter is as you can," he clarified the order, hoping to overcome the blasted thing's logic problem.

It gave that obnoxious white sparkle again as his order connected, and was approved -- or at least not vetoed -- by the Sorting Hat, and then it dipped down to his shoulder once more.

And this time, when the world reformed around him, Severus was up to his ankles in mossy thatch, on the roof of the gamekeeper's cottage.

"What-" he lurched sideways trying to pull his boot out of the damp, prickly mess, and caught himself against the chimney as the other foot slid underneath him. He managed not to drop his wand somehow, though he felt several buttons tear free of his sleeve on the fieldstone.

The bobble spun and twinkled over his head, and Severus weathered once more an urge to try and smash it to dust. "Get. Out. Of. My. Sight," he told it. He didn't see it go -- for self-preservation, he had closed his eyes and was counting to twenty in Farsi -- but he heard its parting chime echo through the windy October night. He opened his eyes, feeling just slightly more in control of his temper, and gathered his balance to apparate to the ground.

Then the sound of voices came echoing up the chimneystack, smoky and furious. No words discernable, with one man shouting over another and the flames roaring below while the wind yowled across the clay chimney pot, but the meaning was clear in the warring tones, and the muffled smash of glass inside.

Severus decided he'd kill Malfoy first, and then ask Potter what the hell was going on.

But before he could apparate down to the doorstep, a volley of green sparks erupted from the chimney, and the stink of burning floo powder tainted the billowing smoke. Something else shattered inside, and then the front door opened, throwing a long slash of firelight across the grass. Potter's tall silhouette stood framed within it.

"You may as well come in, Snape," he said into the darkness. "I know you're out there." Then the shadow disappeared, leaving only the light like a golden carpet to the doorstep.

Severus blinked, suspicion pouring like cold water into his fury, tempering him from a frothing boil down to a seething curiousity. Instincts that had kept him alive for years on the spider-thread between Albus and the Dark Lord, made him school his face and smooth his robes before he apparated down to the ground. There was something happening here. Something far more important than it looked. His gut told him that it could change everything -- a turning of the tide no less profound than the discovery of the Horcruxes that had undermined the Dark Lord's power. Potter was no Dark Lord, but he was weary, and he was angry, and he was savage when cornered -- Severus still found himself inclined to take his gut warning seriously.

His first glimpse of the interior of Potter's cottage supported that suspicion; Potter's old school trunk lay on its side in the lounge, rumpled clothes, shrunken books and shoes spilling in a haphazard scatter across the carpet. The remains of two amber bottles were steaming and sizzling against the fireback, filling the air with the smell of scorched butterbeer. Another bottle lay in shards against the kitchen wall, beneath a slash of amber like arterial spray across the plaster. Three more bottles sat on the counter. A Gryffindor scarf draped from the back of Potter's second chair. An unfamiliar overcloak hung behind the door as Severus nudged it closed.

"I felt you at the wards," Potter said, not looking up as he wadded up the scarf and tossed it into a corner. "Would have let you in earlier, only Charlie wasn't done knocking my teeth in. He caught up with me right after dinner. Wouldn't leave off until just now." Potter kicked the trunk out of his way, crossed to his bar cabinet, and brought down a bottle of Severus' favorite brandy and two mismatched glasses.

Severus accepted one, but cast a pointed glance at the trunk after Potter poured the drink. "I take it you and Mr. Weasley are intending a holiday of some kind then?"

That got his attention. Startled green eyes flashed up, then followed his gaze, and clouded over in a scowl. "Not likely. Ever." He took a gulp of the brandy. "For any reason."

Severus took a sip, savoured the taste, and waited.

At last, Potter gave a sigh of deep disgust and flopped into his sagging, squashy, threadbare armchair. "He wants me to take Ron and Hermione off the blacklist," he growled into his glass. "I told him to ask the Headmistress. Told him I didn't even put them on it in the first place, but he didn't care. Hermione wants to apply for the History of Magic job now that Binns has finally given it up, and Charlie wants Ron to be able to come and help out with his classes from time to time." He took another drink, disrespectfully large, given the quality of the brandy.

Severus nudged the trunk aside and claimed the other chair, still silent. Potter shot him a hard glance, then looked down. "Okay. It pissed me off and I probably overreacted. I admit that. But he said I was stonewalling. Called me petty and vindictive. Like their being blacklisted had anything to do with me!"

"It did."

"IT DID NOT!" For a moment, Potter seemed ready to hurl another glass at the fire, but he managed to quell the urge. Then, two long breaths later, he had the grace to blush. "All right, it did. They wouldn't have been at the infirmary if not for my accident, but that doesn't make it my fault."

"I did not say you were at fault."

Potter sighed. "Charlie did. He said I was persecuting his family over my own petty personal grudge, and I hadn't any right to."

Severus felt his stomach resume its previous boil. "And that, I presume, was when you began packing to run away?"

"I was only going to go to Hogsmeade. I thought maybe I could get a flat, or take a room at the Broomsticks. Just so I wouldn't have to bloody well see them every day, all right?" The fire's reflection blotted out Potter's glare, but couldn't disguise the sullen voice. "Only the way Charlie carried on, you'd have thought I was throwing myself off a bloody cliff without a broom, or-"

"Over the years, you have given me many reasons to insult you, Potter," Severus growled through his teeth. "But this is a first for cowardice."

Potter's head whipped around, eyes lambent in the firelight as his face drained of colour. Then he took a shaky breath and raised one hand, his palm imprinted with the cut pattern of his glass. "Don't," he whispered. "It isn't funny. Not from you."

"You imagine I am joking?"

"Snape, you don't know what they-"

Severus gave the trunk a savage kick, rolling it upright, where it closed with a bang. "The devil I don't! You wear it on your sleeve, for all to see! They _hurt_ you," he sneered. "They hurt you, and now you are more afraid of forgiving them than you ever were of the Dark Lord or his followers!"

A slash of furious red arose across Potter's face. "I'm not afraid!" Severus made a rude noise, and Potter surged up out of his chair to shout. "I'm not! I just don't WANT to forgive them! They haven't earned it!"

"You haven't let them earn it," Severus leveled the accusation with a stab of his finger.

Potter did not give an inch. "Why the hell should I?" he demanded.

Severus felt a cold smile twist his face. "Very well then. It's nice to see you intend to surrender the moral high ground in your condemnation of my relationship with that cur, Black."

Yes, he had thought that would jerk the little fool up short. "What?"

Severus sipped, and licked the hot sting from his lip with relish. "The boot's pinching the other foot now, isn't it, Potter? Why should you accept Weasley's apology any more than I accepted Black's? Why you allow him to make reparation to you, when he hasn't been made to suffer for what he did? Why should you believe he was merely stupid rather than malicious, when it's your pride and self respect that lies in tatters? Why should you believe he regrets what he's done when you have yet to see him bleed for it?"

Potter sank back into the chair slowly, as though the air were being let out of him. Severus refilled his glass, then Potter's as well. "You've no reason to assume he hadn't known what he was doing the entire time, have you?" he went on. "Especially when in retrospect, you feel like an utter idiot for not having guessed from the very beginning how it all would play out in the end,"

The boy made a noise, small and strangled in the back of his throat. Severus nudged his snifter toward him on the table, then he sat back into his own chair and regarded the horrified young man over the rim of his glass. "You're right, of course. Weasley and Weasley-nee-Granger do not deserve to be forgiven any more than Sirius Black did. But then again, do you imagine Draco Malfoy _deserves_ to live a free man in England after what he did here? Letting the Death Eaters in? Placing Rosmerta under Imperius? Poisoning Weasley and Bell?"

Potter looked down, but he managed to shake his head guiltily. "They weren't... they recovered, and-"

"No better than you have," Severus cut him off without mercy. "Do you believe ex-Minister Fudge deserves a fat retirement pension and a villa in Majorca while we, who bore the brunt of the War he didn't want to admit to, live on the charity of Hogwarts' Headmistress? Do you think Dolores Umbridge deserves to draw breath outside Azkaban's gates?" Potter's hand was shaking, glass half-raised to his lips, eyes closed tight as the breath whistled, shallow and quick through his nose.

Severus reached across the space between them, caught Potter's upper arm, where the lurid red showed faintly through his shirtsleeve. "Do you think," he said softly as Potter flinched, "that _you_ deserve nothing better for your sacrifices and service to our world, than to hide your heart behind an ugly tattoo and pretend you don't care whether anyone loves you?"

"Maybe." The pale lips moved in a whisper. "Maybe it is what I deserve." Severus raised an eyebrow, but the boy stammered onward. "Ginny loved me. She loved me, and I ... I got her killed."

Ah. So they came to her ghost at last. Severus released his grip, and leaned back again, knowing better than to disturb Ginevra's shrine of unassuageable guilt. "Weasley and Granger loved you too," he pointed out instead, "and they are still alive."

Potter shook his head, black fringe flopping. "No. They didn't. They used me."

"Idiot. They loved you! They could never have faced the Dark Lord at your side if they did not!" Potter gulped, and was silent. "Love may make the world go round, to borrow an atrocious metaphor," Severus went on, "but it also tends to make otherwise sensible people behave like utter imbeciles! Merlin's bollocks, Potter, one need only think of Madame Puddifoot's in the month of February to realize that! What idiot supposed sticky, hyperactive teenagers condemning each other to weeks of chocolate-induced spots to be an act of adoration?"

That won a watery, hollow laugh. Severus waited until Potter had filled his mouth with brandy before he delivered the coup de grace. "They loved you, Potter. Weasley and Granger loved you. And they used you, and they hurt you, and the sooner you get over all of that, the better."

He didn't choke, but he did take a long time to swallow. "I can't, Snape," he said at length. "Severus. I can't just forget-"

Severus snarled and waved him silent. "Only an idiot _forgets,_ a thing like that, Potter. And it's no matter to me whether you forgive them or continue to run away from them," he added, poking a finger at Potter's startled face. "However, you may NOT expect me to pat you on the head every time you come back and roll about in this mess because you need a good, self-abusive wallow! Just get over it! Get over it, and bloody well go ON with your life!"

"It's not that simple-"

"It IS that simple, Potter."

"You think I can just decide none of it matters?" His voice cracked. "Just turn my heart off, and not think about how they bloody well crushed it under their feet when they-" Potter checked himself with a savage shake of his head, and another gulp of his brandy. "Apology accepted, mates," he chirruped in an obscenity of cheer. "Let's have a chocolate-fucking-frog and play some exploding snap, like nothing never even happened!"

"Milk someone else for your pity, you addict," Severus replied. "Sooner or later, you and everyone who still puts up with your company, will get tired of you walking around bleeding." He sipped his own brandy, then added, "And given that at present, it's only myself, the Headmistress, and Draco Malfoy who do put up with you, I shouldn't think that day is too far off at the rate you're going!"

That was a mistake, Severus realized as Potter curled into himself, suddenly small and fragile; a little boy, just big enough to tuck into a cupboard and forget all about. But stubborn still, he clutched his glass in both hands and shook his head. "It's not that easy."

"I never said it was easy. I said it was simple."

"Well it isn't!" he shouted. "It isn't simple either!"

Severus set his snifter aside. "Say the Dark Lord's name."

"What?"

Then Severus lunged across the table, seized Potter by the shirtfront, and hauled his scrawny, huddling arse out of the chair to give him a shake. Nose to nose, Severus repeated himself while Potter's glass toppled, splattering to the floor. "Say. His. Name."

"Voldemort." No hesitation. No fear as the confused, green eyes searched his. Not a trace of flinch or of evasion in that word which even Severus still couldn't always make himself say.

He nodded, eased his grip, and slid his arm around the curve of Potter's back. "It IS that simple."

Potter leaned into him then, arms cupped up against his chest -- tucked into the embrace now, not pushing away. He was silent for a long moment, and his redolent breath stirred the hair against Severus' chin while he thought.

"I won't forgive Draco," he said at last.

Severus curled his fingers tighter. "Good."

"I mean it." Potter's voice raised a touch, and the muscles under Severus' hand quivered with renewed tension. "I won't. I can't!" Something in the timbre of that denial made Severus want to shake the brat all over again.

"You don't dare," he snarled, crushing Potter against him in a sudden clench. "What power does he hold over you then? What weapon have you put into Malfoy's hands that you, who defeated the Dark Lord, have so much to fear from him?"

Potter looked up, eyes wide and dazzling with anger, with fear, with raw, aching _hunger._ Then, in a savage wrenching twist, the boy pulled himself away, backing up to hearthstone as the blood raged in his face.

"He knows what I want, all right?" he shouted. "He knows ME. I wanted it to work with him, so I showed him everything. I showed him _everything,_ Snape! And he used it to..." He shook his head wildly -- not in denial this time, but in rage, like a lion beset by hornets -- and battered his fists on the stones behind him.

"I don't want him, all right?" he managed after a moment, his eyes fierce and hot. "I don't. But he knows what I DO want, and he keeps..." a hand waved in the air, as though searching for the word. "He knows how to pretend that he's..." Another wave. "And I'm afraid I'll-" Potter's throat flexed in a hard gulp, which Severus saw through a haze of red.

"What is it that you want then, Potter?" he hissed. "Some irredeemable rogue to fall to the side of the Light in worship of your pretty eyes? An olive branch from an enemy, to stand in place of the acceptance you can never hope for from your aunt and uncle?"

"No," he said.

Severus could tell neither of them was convinced.

"What then?" he demanded. "Tell us both why you are so fascinated with Draco Malfoy that you tremble at his very shadow!"

"I want him to fuck me, all right?" Potter bellowed in reply. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

No. It was not anything he had wanted to hear, but Potter gave him no chance to say so. Teeth bared, he clung to the fieldstone hearth-wall, and dropped the words like curses between them.

"Draco knows what I like. He knows how to fuck me till I can't remember my name, till I can't walk, can't even _breathe_ afterward. He used to fuck me so hard, I saw stars, and I could come without even touching my cock!" Those green eyes locked onto his, beseeching, furious, loathing the words he spoke just as much as Severus hated to hear them. "I haven't had that in over a year, Snape, and _goddamnit,_ I want it!"

The brandy in Severus' stomach curdled like lead. But then Potter's bruised, scuffed hand rose toward him, almost reached, almost beckoned. "But I don't want _him!_" he whispered. "Not him. Never again."

_Never again._

Never trust a Marauder a Gryffindor a Potter a hero a wizard more mad than you are a man too powerful for his own good a lonely little boy with tragic eyes and a face like an angel fallen low...

Severus took a breath.

_Never again._

Never reveal your heart your intent your mind your fears your plans your understanding your allegiances your soul your shame your regret your notes your capacity your fiercest most horrifying desires...

His collar was too tight. He loosened it without thinking. Potter's eyes dropped to his fingers, staring as though mesmerized.

_Never again._

Never want what you cannot have.

Potter's lips parted, breath shuddering out of them like steam. The firelight glittered from the damp flush where his straight little teeth had bitten them closed, where his soft, warm tongue had licked at the bruise...

Severus lunged, caught Potter up and bore him into the wall with a savage grunt, and a pillaging kiss. He felt the impact through the small, fine skull between his palms, but there was no flinch, no shudder as Potter's tongue surged into his mouth in eager welcome. He bit it, that hungry tongue, then tangled his own along the length, daring Potter's teeth in turn.

Hands were moving. Potter's. His own. Hair tugged, carded, tangled in seeking fingers. Clothing tugged aside, torn away, dispelled by wordless, wandless, desperate magic as the brandy- and lust-soaked battle carried on between their lips. Potter's leg came up over his hip, strong, naked. Severus caught it, followed it down to knead his arse, to heft him higher, closer, to press his cock against the rampant heat Potter presented him while he drove his fingers into that clasping hunger behind.

Something crashed off the mantle. Severus neither saw it, nor cared, beyond a grunt when it bounced off his elbow and smashed on the floor. His fingers slid, smoothly, easily into Potter's body, no need of slick or spell to ease their way, no need for anything but Potter's own weight bearing him down onto the invasion. His cock pulsed and lurched against Severus' belly. His cry strangled, swaddled, sucked down in the maelstrom of the kiss.

"More," Potter tore his mouth away, gasped the demand hot and wet against Severus' temple. "More, damn it!" Arms clasped around his neck, Potter brought his other leg up, suspended himself between Severus' hips, his lips, driving fingers, and the rough stone wall.

Severus leaned into it with a will, biting, sucking Potter's throat as he worked the clutching heat open with quick, urgent thrusts. "Where do you keep it?" he managed to gasp over Potter's throaty keen when Severus' little finger joined the others.

"Don't need any," the boy gasped, salty and squirming under his tongue. The satin grip on his fingers rippled as though in agreement as Potter thrust against them.

Alarmed, Severus pulled his hand away. "Do not be a fool! Of course it's necessary-OW!"

"No, damn it," Potter snarled, yanking his hair again, then kissing him hard. "Forget the lube. I don't want it." Then he reached down, arcing away from the wall so he could reach beneath himself, to fill the void Severus had left empty. "I want to feel you," He panted, eyes wild, and face flushed. "I want to _feel_ you fucking me!"

Then Potter bit him. The blood roared in Severus' ears. His bollocks clenched up tight as the pain lanced like lightning beneath his skin. It was almost, almost, very nearly too damned much!

He threw back his head with a hiss, filled his hand with Potter's wild, soft hair, and used it to sling him face down over the armchair. The chairback caught the boy in the belly, ending his wail of protest in a grunt. He reached back, gripped the chair with one hand, but Severus was upon him before he could pull himself upright.

He caught Potter's hips, dragged them up until his knees braced across on the padded chair arms -- spread, splayed wide, so the rosy curl of his opening flinched and winked in the firelight. He dug his thumbs into Potter's cheeks, and breathed a dark promise across the twitching flesh.

"And so you shall!"

At the first stab of his tongue, Potter keened like a banshee, lurched first away from the touch, and then desperately back into it. "FUCK! That's-" Potter yelped, then groaned. "Ohgod, like that! Please, like that! Where the fuck did you -- aah, Christ! Who taught you to mmmmmmaaaGod, Snape!"

"Blasphemer," Severus murmured against the musky skin, driving his thumb in deep.   
"You were the one who insisted I read your pornography..." He paused to lick again, jaw held wide, tongue stabbing hard.

Potter howled, and rutted back against him. "Ohhh, yes... Fuck yes. That's brilliant!" The bollocks against his chin moved, tugged downward as Potter shimmied his hips, and Severus pulled away to look.

"No," he growled, catching Potter's wrist, and wrenching his hand off his cock, then up around behind him, across his hollowed waist. Tension and raw hunger corded his twisted forearm as the boy clawed the air. "You'll feel _me,_ Potter," Severus snarled, lurching up to catch his other arm as well. He pressed it over the first, and dug his fingers in hard. "You'll feel me, and nothing else!"

"Yes!" Potter caught his own arms, his fingers clamping hard, as if bound in place. His grip did not even waver when Severus sank his teeth into the curve of his arse. "Please, please, yes!"

Perhaps it was the begging. Or the breathless sob behind it. Or the distant thrashing of the wind in the Forest trees, muffled and muddled until it seemed more like a susurration of black robes and white-masked whispers. The liquid chuckle of the fire, gulping and hissing to itself like a massive serpent in a long, shadowed hall.

Severus stood up, shaking as he stared at the boy before him; the arched back, sheened with sweat, scuffed with blood and grit. The bloodless grip, fingers spread, shaking as they clung. Red streaks like whip-weals blazing down the heaving ribs...

He'd never done it himself. Never. Never been made to do it.

But he'd had to watch. And he'd had to listen. And he'd had to stop himself looking away, stop himself clutching his ears to block out the screams, stop himself falling to his knees, tearing his mask away to vomit. He'd had to bury the ghosts of a hundred rapes within his mind, from prying eyes of red, and twinkling blue. But their graves were shallow, very shallow, and their voices seemed suddenly so clear.

"Snape."

He'd never seen his father do it, but he'd never failed to hear. To feel it thudding through the floor and walls. To grind it between his teeth so that his pleading wouldn't match hers. And even though there was always a healing spell before she let him come to her, he could always, always, always see the bruises, fading quickly from her wrists, her arms, her face.

"It's all right."

The words made him twitch, shake his head, like he always did when she tried to tell him that. Voice low, ragged and thick from crying; how could she think he'd believe it?

His hands were shaking, but somehow... somehow he was still hard. Hard and aching, despite the spreading cold weight in his stomach, and the surge of loathing that filled his throat as too many memories whelmed him. Horror and panic were clawing away inside him, and still all he wanted to do was drive himself into that lithe, sweaty body as hard as he could. Or else to turn away, and never stop running again.

"Severus, look at me."

He gulped a breath, loud and raw through his throat. Blinked hard until his eyes cleared. Potter was staring at him, half-rolled onto his side, supporting his weight on one shoulder. Bright blooms of lust trailed down his craning throat as he said it again. "Severus, it's all right. I want it."

His fingers ached... he was clamping them too hard on Potter's bony hips. The flesh was bulging, pale and cold between his knuckles. He let go, and Potter immediately rutted back against him, so that Severus' cock head skidded into his hanging bollocks. It wrung a groan from them both.

"You hear me, Severus?" Potter demanded in his spoiled, sulky brat-prince voice, "I want it! I want you." Then he flashed a grin like a rakish dare, and his green eyes sparkled. "Make me feel you," he breathed. "You promised..."

He took a breath, moved one hand to grip Potter's still-entwined wrists, feeling the pulse beneath his palm, keeping time with the racing vein in Potter's throat. He placed himself, snug against the fiercest heat he had ever imagined, then seized that narrow hip once more, and dragged Potter's body down around him.

"Fuck, oh fuck, oh god yes!" Potter babbled, mouth half-pressed to the chairback as his arse clenched and fluttered around Severus' cock. Severus stood still, not thinking, not breathing, and absolutely _not_ coming!

To distract himself, he leaned across Potter's arched back, and caught his lips in a sloppy, sidelong kiss. The boy made a noise, high and surprised as his eyes flashed wide, then drooped once more in hooded pleasure. Then he _purred,_ thrust his tongue into Severus' mouth, and wriggled his narrow little arse harder against his hips, taking his cock deeper still. And suddenly, it was too much.

He had to move. He had to. He needed to surge, and thrust, and conquer that pulsing, strangling, maddening heat around him. The armchair shrieked across the floorboards, driving the carpet up in thick rolls before it. Glass crunched and rolled. Severus' blood roared in his ears, sweat in his eyes, hair in his mouth, his breath a scorching rasp as he pounded himself into Potter with every ounce of his strength. Over, and over, and over forever.

And Potter took it all, every punishing stroke, every yank, every thrust, and with every line of his body, he begged for more. His back in an impossible arch, his wrists a sweaty twist of sinew and bone in Severus' grip, he reared back suddenly -- up off the chair, as though poised to take flight. Mouth stretched in a soundless scream, eyes wide and blind, he came, his scarlet cock leaping against his belly as it slung ropes of slick, sticky pearl across the worn chairback. His arse clenched, rippled, and dragged Severus' orgasm out of him with a grinding roar.

A breath, sharp, salty and hot against Potter's shoulder. Another, groan-driven as the last pulses of pleasure twitched out of him. And then Potter was sagging in his hands, a boneless, slippery dead weight against his still-heaving chest. With a curse, Severus struggled to keep them both from tumbling to the glass-scattered floor. His prick slipped from Potter's arse, wringing a gasp and a stagger before he managed to wrestle the brat properly into his arms.

Potter's belly was covered in sweat and spunk, his golden skin redolent of pure, perfect sex. His face, still flushed and sweaty, curled limply into Severus' shoulder as he was hefted up, closer, higher, tighter. Helpless.

"I could do anything to you right now," Severus mused, ignoring the ache in his arms and the tremble in his knees as he regarded that peaceful face, so childlike in repose. "Anything I wanted..." But Harry's breathing never hitched, and his raven-wing brows lay quiescent, even when Severus pressed his lips to each in turn.

"You are a very foolish man," he murmured against the infamous scar. The fire's crackle was his only answer, so Severus turned away from the wreckage and went to put Potter to bed.


	13. Path of Thorns

~* October 16th *~

_To Mistress Penelope Knelling  
c/o Rothenberger Hof, Dresden, Germany_

_For Rush Delivery_

_My Dear Nell_

_It's done. Five tower bells, the smallest of them taller than I am, and all made of glass. I'll admit it, when we first had that letter, I thought it was a hoax, but Mr. Potter actually came into the foundry to cast the bells himself. Said he didn't want to share the formula for the glass, but watching him and that Snape fellow set it all up, I'd not have wanted to chance it myself anyhow. Casting bronze and silver is dangerous enough for me -- I don't ever want to try and control spells of that much power._

_But still... Oh, Nellie, you ought to have seen it. And the tone! Dear Merlin, sirens don't sing so sweetly. Just a tap, just one little tap of Mr. Potter's wand, before even any of the runes were carved into it, and the sound set off all four of the others, pitch perfect. Fair made my hair stand on end -- and none of your cheek about me not having much to stand anymore, you minx -- and every hollow vessel in the whole foundry simply sang in sympathy._

_And strong, as well! I was worried the hanging loop or the clapper would give way with such a weight behind it, but we made a wee trial bell, no bigger than a barrel, to test the process. Of course Tim dropped it, but instead of shattering, it broke his foot and splintered the floorboard! Imagine! Only glass!_

_And of course none of us who were in the workshop can say a word about it, since Potter insisted on us all being under an oath spell just for the discussing of the matter! I suppose it's only your name on the contract that allows me to tell you about it at all, for I couldn't begin to write down any detailed notes about what I could recall of the glass potion afterward either. All I can tell you is that you'll be needing a new #20 Iron cauldron, I'm afraid, as the old one's quite done in now. No replicating any of this on the sly, I suppose, unless... well._

_Hogwarts certainly doesn't want any word of this process getting out, but we really must talk to them about relaxing their secrecy and exclusivity clauses, dear. If these great monstrous bells can hold this much magic just in their raw form, then Merlin knows what they'll be capable of once those runic inscriptions are carved in. And as you've always told me, once a thing's seen to work, then it'll be copied._

_And trust me, Nellie my love, these will be copied. This could remake the guild, I'm telling you, but we'll have to go carefully. I thought we could offer to knock 15% off our original estimate if they'll allow us to advertise our involvement, and another 10% in exchange for permission to utilize some of these equations and frequency tunings in our metal bells. Surely they won't think that too much an encroachment on their work, and after all, I'm told that Mr. Snape was a Slytherin, so he'll understand the money of it. He's a queer piece of work though, so... we'll have to see._

_He'll surely understand that the only way to keep control of a thing is to market it though. Our Tim had a rather clever idea about offering to help him develop, test, and market that interesting polishing compound he insisted we use. He doesn't seem much the sort to bother about such things, though Tim's right that most folks have no particular aversion to being rich, and if we can hook him on a deal like that, it just might open the door to further negotiations. I'll leave all that to you, however. You'll find a way to make it irresistible, my dear, you always do._

_Well, all this will keep until you're home from Dresden, my love. You must hurry back though, for I am determined that you must see these bells in person before we deliver them, and to be honest, Mr. Potter is already getting a bit anxious about the delivery schedule. I don't fancy him sending Mr. Snape along to scowl at me._

_And now I must go. Toria is preparing the green for casting that replacement carillon for Bethelston, and I'm wanted to check the bellows. The last time I allowed those silly girls a pour without me, they wasted half the coal, forgetting their blowing charms.  
Be safe, come home, and remember you're loved dear._

_All my heart, Mistress Carol Campana,  
Campana and Knelling Metallurgy.  
GBWM lic. 1956._

 

~* October 16th, *~

 

The first thing Harry saw when he woke up, were the words "Never Again"

He blinked his sore eyes, but the words on his shoulder didn't go away, and neither did the sundered heart behind them, rendered in a red so angry that it seemed to throb. Head pillowed on his crossed arms, Harry stroked his thumb across the mark, quietly amazed, as always, when the bloody scarlet heart failed to throb in pain. Even a year after he'd had it done, the tattoo still looked like an open wound. If he was being honest with himself, Harry had to admit that's what he'd had in mind when he'd selected it. A warning he couldn't overlook: something to keep him strong, to keep him focused. Something that would force him to remember how much love could hurt.

As if love itself needed any help with that.

He huffed a laugh at his own naiveté, morning stubble scratching against the rumpled bedding.

A rustle behind him. A sigh that blew the small hairs across Harry's neck, and then a familiar, long-fingered hand reached across Harry's back to settle squarely over both his tattoo and his hand. "All right, Potter?" Snape asked in a gravelly morning voice.

Harry took a breath, feeling the blood and adrenaline surge through his head like a drum. All right? Was he all right? Was he managing to take his life back? To get over his need to be important to someone at any cost? Was he learning to take what he wanted from his life, or was he lying in bed with the most dangerous man he'd ever known, and breaking a promise to himself yet again?

Harry turned his hand, let his fingers slip into the hollows between Snape's own -- not quite entwined, not quite pushing him off, but there, touching, a still caress that fully hid Harry's questionable oath from the light of the early day.

Snape didn't love him. Snape wouldn't love him. He was safe here, no matter how spectacularly passionate, possessive, and inventive the man was when he finally let himself be goaded into topping. It was Snape, and Snape protected Harry from himself. Snape knew how bloody awful Harry was at being in love. Snape wouldn't let Harry fall in love with him. He'd do something horrid the instant he suspected Harry might be, just to remind Harry of his place in their arrangement. They'd shout, they'd sulk, and then it would be okay.

He could trust Snape. It was the one lesson the war had taught him without equivocation.

"You didn't hurt me," he said, pushing his shoulders back into the heat of Snape's arm, and turning as the man rolled up to spoon against his back. Harry could feel the rough scar just underneath Snape's collarbone rubbing against his neck as he sighed. "It was brilliant, in fact."

Snape's arm stayed where it was, pinning his own down to his side, and covering the mark on Harry's other shoulder. Harry could feel Snape's prick, half-hard under his thigh as the man's breath parted the hair on the back of his head. "Liar," he said, and Harry could hear the smile. "You're all over scrapes and bruises. You look as though you'd gone three bad rounds with the giant squid, and then took on Hagrid's menagerie afterward. That elf of yours has already come in, and left again in hysterics at seeing the state of your cottage and your linens." Lips brushed his skull. Not a kiss, but as though to press the words close and soft into his hair. "I did hurt you, Potter, but you liked it all the same. You are a very strange man."

Harry frowned at that. "Yeah, well. It's not like that's any surprise," he grumbled. "Anyway, I'd have thought you'd seen worse while you were in the - ow!"

"Do not," Snape's hand clamped over his shoulder, and the thin lips pressed closer, so close he could feel the teeth behind them, "pick that fight with me, Harald James Potter."

Harry flinched. "God, Snape, do you have to use my given name while your cock is trying to push me out of bed?" Harry didn't bring up the eager state of his own cock. Every move Harry had made since awakening had given his insides the chance to remind him of last night's adventures. It was the most delicious of aches; an ember inside him, sleepy and hungry and smug, and wanting only a little puff of air to make it blaze back into flaming need. Harry shivered hard, and told his libido to behave.

"Ahh, an unpleasant sensation you actually do find unpleasant? A relief to learn that you're not titillated by parental roleplay, at very least." Snape's vocal smirk had returned, and Harry had to laugh.

"Aunt Petunia only ever called me 'boy', and then only when she couldn't get out of talking to me at all," he said, wriggling his hips to allow Snape's erection to come up between them, cuddled close and firm between the cheeks of his arse. "The only person who ever used all three names like that was Molly, and then only when she was really, really narked at me."

"Potter," Snape's voice was strangely gentle. "What makes you think I ever mistook that obscene muggle woman for your mother figure?"

Harry closed his eyes, breath tangled sharp in his throat. He clenched his fingers into his own shoulder, digging past Snape's hold to remind himself what lay beneath.

_Never again._

"Could," he swallowed. "Could we not talk about that right now, d'you think?" he managed to ask. "I'd much rather have you fuck me one more time before I have to get myself to the Great Hall for breakfast."

Snape hissed a breath, and his hips jutted forward as though he couldn't help it. His cock, fully hard now, was like a bar of iron under Harry's arse. "Idiot boy," he murmured, "Why do you think I was asking if you'd been damaged?"

Oh. For answer, Harry flexed his thighs and pressed backward. "You might have just said," he grumbled.

"I believe I did." Snape nudged a leg between Harry's own, and then reached down to catch Harry's knee and pull it high against his chest. The stretch made Harry groan at the pain/delight/eagerness inside him. Snape's tongue wandered a warm, wet path along the back of his ear. "Now, where do you keep your lubricant, brat?" Harry opened his mouth, and Snape bit down on his earlobe. "Try to tell me you don't need it, and you'll be wanking in the bath," he warned, "Alone. I can't abide that conjured slop."

"I wasn't," Harry panted, leaning across the bed to fumble in the nightstand drawer. "I was just going to say it ought to be illegal, you saying 'lubricant' in that voice..." He caught his own knee, pulled himself wider yet as Snape took the pot from him and bit the cork out of it.

"Mmm, and what voice is that, Potter?"

"Ohgod," Harry whined as Snape's fingers pressed gently, slickly inward. "_That_ voice, you sadistic bastard," he panted. "That 'detention, Mr. Potter' voice, and don't you pretend you don't know what I'm talking ab-AAH!" He shivered, and grabbed for his bollocks as Snape's fingers stroked over his prostate.

"You've a filthy mind, Mr. Potter," Snape put that damned voice to good use as he fidgeted himself into position, and then pressed gently inside. "Next you'll be asking me to make you count strokes..."

Harry was, by that point, as incapable of counting anything at all, as he was of putting together the words to explain that fact to the man who's cock was even now drawing out of his arse in a slow, burning slide. So instead, he settled for tangling his fingers tightly with Snape's on his arm, and biting the pillow to muffle his groans -- and whatever other awkward things that might come out of his mouth while Snape was fucking him so slowly, so lazily, so bloody brilliantly.

 

~*~

They decided that Snape would go down to breakfast first, so as to give time for the bruises on Harry's neck and shoulders (and hips, and back, and knees) to fade under the healing spells. And Harry, sated, sore, and smug, was more than pleased to take the opportunity to settle into his bathtub and have a good long think while his companion swept through the floo back to his own quarters.

Harry had been letting Draco get to him, of course. Even before, he had been able to see that, but until Snape had given him a good, hard wake-up call -- Harry smirked at his own innuendo -- he hadn't really known quite what he could do about it. Draco seemed to change the rules every time Harry got his feet under him, racking up points while Harry floundered deeper and deeper into the mire. Now, though, Harry knew what to do about it; nothing.

Since he couldn't win Draco's game, the only winning move was not to play it.

It was really no different than fighting Voldemort had been. Until Harry had learned to look past his hatred, to set it aside, and to do what he had to do for its own sake, Voldemort had been able to anticipate every move he made. Harry had almost got himself, Ron, and Hermione killed before he'd come to realize that. Voldemort had known hatred inside and out: how to use it, how to exploit it, and how to guess what it would make someone do. And Draco... well, Draco knew desire, didn't he? Draco knew raw lust, and hunger for that thing you'd never believed you could have. Hope was his weapon, and loneliness was his ally.

Draco hadn't cracked his way into Harry's life until after Harry had left Ron and Hermione. He'd stepped into the aching void left behind by the loss of Harry's two best friends, and had made himself absolutely at home. And Harry, looking for anything to staunch the bleeding, had let him. Had welcomed him. Had wanted him.

And now... well, it was almost more habit, how he was reacting, wasn't it? Muscle memory, left over from a year of wandering about bleeding every day, like a limp that stays around after the broken bone has healed. Draco counted on that limp, so the only way for Harry to regain his balance was to just stop limping, and walk properly.

And it really was that simple. Though, as Snape had said, that didn't make it easy.

A sudden, tapping flutter at the window shutters distracted Harry from his reverie, and a moment later, Hedwig shouldered through and fluttered to his side. She dropped a scrap of parchment onto the stones.

_You are wanted in the Great Hall,_ Snape's distinctive hand was hurried and shaky, as though written against a wall, with conjured ink. _Stop dawdling and get down here._

_S.  
Bathe First!_

 

~*~

Ten minutes later, still damp and smelling of patchouli and mint soap, Harry strode into the Great Hall, and understood the strange note with a sudden, rather horrified clarity.

Remus sat at Minerva's left, beaming as though Harry's shock was the best joke in the world. Harry stole a glance at Snape, sitting two seats down, next to Draco and Kingsley, but the man offered nothing but his trademark glower. Everyone else at the table wore identical grins, except for Draco, who seemed to be putting on his best 'bored distraction' act.

Harry covered his confusion with a grin and strode up to take his seat. "You're a prat, you know," he murmured as he took the seat Remus pushed out for him. "I had no idea you were coming!"

"That's odd," Remus replied, nudging the porridge toward him. "I distinctly recall you inviting me last summer. Not to mention every time you've written me since then."

"You always said no," Harry protested, still grinning. "I thought I was going to have to threaten to get married or something to get you out of Italy." Someone farther down the table made a choking noise. Harry told himself it had been Draco, and grinned to imagine the blond's face.

"Married, is it?" Remus' face creased in a delighted smile. "I take it there's someone you need to introduce me to while I'm here?"

Whoops.

"Depends," Harry sidestepped, "how long are you going to stay?"

Remus accepted the evasion with a knowing laugh. "Well, I'd thought, between catching up with you, and visiting the other members of the Order, that I had better plan a fortnight." He prodded a bit of tomato with his fork, and the smile grew a bit wistful. "And I've a few... personal things to attend to while I'm here, as well."

There was a long silence, and then Remus gave himself a tiny little shake, and his grin resumed its strength. "Still, I'm sure we can find time to fit in the obligatory family mortification any time, Harry. In fact, I'd intended to drop into the Burrow and shock Molly into a few more white hairs this afternoon. You could bring your new conquest along and get the inquisition over all at once, if you liked."

Suddenly, the porridge in Harry's mouth turned to cement. He could feel them watching, the prickling caress of curious eyes as they wondered why his face should go white, and his breath seize up at such an innocent suggestion. Minerva's level stare, Draco's calculating glance, Flitwick's puzzled look from down the table, the maternal crease between Sprout's eyebrows. But most of all, Harry could feel the way Snape was _not_ looking at him.

From the corner of his eye, Harry could track the gleam of Snape's cutlery as it made the trip, unhurried, from mouth to plate. He might have been the only person moving in the entire hall, but Snape didn't seem to notice or mind if he was. The fork shrilled against the plate, sending a chill up Harry's spine, and reminding him to finish chewing and answer Remus' question.

"I... don't..." Harry swallowed, then reached for his teacup to win some time. Snape's knee bumped Harry's under the table, and he swallowed again. "I'm... not ready." He murmured at last.

Remus' smile faded. "Ready?"

"To... er... take a whole day away from work," Harry hastily filled in, reaching for the honey, and dumping a spoonful over his porridge. "I mean, you know how Moll- Mrs. Weasley gets when she starts feeding people; she can go on all day. And Snape and I are kind of at a crux right now." He glanced to his left for support, then hastily looked away before he could identify what lay beneath the neutral disinterest of Snape's expression. "The Wards, I mean. We're just about to start the construction phase now, and we have to go over the plans with Vector and Sinistra one last time. To make sure everything's going to be right before we bring the workmen in to start building the-"

A teapot banged down onto the table in front of Harry's plate, and he flinched silent. He stared at Snape's fingers as he turned the teapot slightly, and tipped it to pour a silent amber stream into Harry's empty cup.

Harry watched it fill, took a slow breath, and finished his sentence in a less frantic tone, "-towers."

"Towers?" Remus' expression was one of mild bemusement, but there was a sharper curiousity lurking in his amber gaze; the wolf smelling prey. "You didn't mention anything about towers this summer."

Harry took a moment to remind himself not to run. "Plan's kind of matured since then," he said, stirring the honey into his porridge. "Why don't you come down to the workroom after you're done at the Burrow?" He ignored Draco's narrowed stare, and glanced to his right to catch Snape's eye. The man was having none of it, though, and kept his attention on his omelet. "We could show you what we've accomplished thus far, assuming the Headmistress doesn't mind?"

Behind Remus' shoulder, Minerva smiled. "And why should I mind the chance to have a defense expert of Mr. Lupin's capacity consult with the two of you at no cost?" She smirked over her teacup's rim. "I am Scottish, after all."

Remus chuckled at that, and Harry began to relax. "We could have dinner together afterward. Maybe head down the Broomsticks and have a pint or three," he ventured, resisting the urge to look at Snape. If he didn't actually _see_ the man's forbidding glare, then he could always just apologize after the date had been set up. But really, he was counting on Snape's Slytherin nature to see the tiny little deception for the opportunity Harry meant it to be.

All the same, he moved his foot out of stomping range. "If you didn't have other plans, that is..." he trailed the invitation off as Remus laughed at him and patted his hand.

"It's a wonderful idea, Harry," he said. Then his grin turned sly again, and the amber eyes followed as Harry raised his teacup to his lips. Remus waited until Harry was swallowing to add, "And perhaps we can talk more about this 'marriage' idea as well..."

 

~*~

"Potter..."

"Don't say anything."

"Need anything more be said? Surely you didn't expect this evening would come out _well_..."

"Well I don't see why not! We were all doing just fine in the workroom!"

"Which is, oddly enough, rather different to the taproom of the Three Broomsticks. Merlin, Potter, even for you-"

"It could have worked out!"

"Perhaps if you had put us both under _imperius_ first. And everyone in the tavern as well. Idiot. Did that bloody concussion last month somehow make you forget that Lupin loathes me?"

"Shut up, he doesn't."

"Potter..."

"Well, if you'd let him get to know you, he wouldn't. Look, we have to begin somewhere, don't we?"

"Potter."

"And anyway, it's not like you could have asked him out just like that. Not right there at the breakfast table. He'd have passed out from shock."

"..."

"It didn't go too badly, anyway. I mean, nobody shouted, right? And wands weren't drawn or anything. So maybe next time we should go- Mph! Hey. Snamph... Quit that, I'm trying to argue with youmph!"

"Consider this an appeal to your nearly atrophied Slytherin nature, idiot."

"But- Mmmmmph...mmmm?"

"Stop... digging... before you... bury... yourself."

"Mmmm..."

 

~*October 17*~

_Dear Harry,_

_Honestly, it's all right. You just caught me by surprise last night, that's all. It was only a misunderstanding, of course. Had I been thinking, I might have realized that colleagues, working closely on a long-term project might develop a habit of extending work sessions into dinner, and even after hours meetings as well. And even Severus Snape must sometimes step foot in a pub, I suppose._

_It's only I had thought you and I might get some time to catch up first, is all. Just the two of us, I mean. I didn't mean to be rude, and I realize now that my silence must have seemed that way. Just a bit caught on the back foot, really, and my conversational skills weren't up to the challenge. And clearly Severus' were equally rusty. For a spy, he never was very glib unless he was insulting someone though, so I suppose that's only to be expected._

_As I write this, it's after midnight, you have yet to return to your cottage, and I am too tired to wait up for you, so I'll leave this where you can find it in the morning. I'd speak to you about this tomorrow, only I'm going down Shropshire to visit Diggory, and Arabella if she's still in Little Winging. I would invite you, only Minerva says that the Board of Governors are coming to audit the construction plans for the towers, and so I rather expect you'll be wanted here at Hogwarts._

_Why don't you and I try this dinner and catching up idea of yours once I'm back in the North then? I'll floo you when I know my itinerary._

_You're doing a wonderful job here, Harry. Don't know if I'd said so yet, but it's true. Working so closely with Snape when there's already so much painful history between you, and then going on in spite of all that to create what is essentially a new class of spells ... well, your mum would be proud of you.  
I'm proud of you.  
And I'll see you in a few days.  
Remus._

_P.S. Molly asked me to give you this picture of little Harry Brian Weasley, but I got too caught up in your project, and didn't remember until just now. So here he is. What hair, eh? Let's hope the brain underneath it favours his mum as well. She sends her love as well, but you knew that, of course. And Ron too._

 

~* October 19*~

"Wait! No! Don't come in!" Harry shouted as the workroom door swung open. His wand sprang into his hand, ready to petrify if need be, but Kingsley Shacklebolt, luckily, wasn't one to take such a warning lightly, even from a man twenty years his junior.

He froze, and then let go the door with exaggerated care. "Am I interrupting something?" His deep voice was level, and filled with equal measures of amusement and wariness as he took in Harry's outfit.

Harry looked down and blushed. "They aren't pajamas," he said, lowering his wand and brushing a hand over his pale blue medical scrubs. "They're just easier to charm impervious than regular robes are. And they don't shed fibers into the water, either."

"Water?" Shacklebolt asked, then looked down when Harry nodded at the threshold. His eyebrows went up, and he stepped back from the tiny stream. Harry watched him track the narrow moat as far around the perimeter of the room as he could, his dark eyes shrewd and sharp. "Ahh. More ward-work, I take it?"

"Actually, Mr. Potter merely wanted a water feature in my workroom for aesthetic purposes," Snape snarked from the doorway to the second lab. "Kept prattling on about calming properties, and feng shui..."

"Shut it, you," Harry shot back, transfiguring a lunch tray into a tiny glass footbridge. "Yeah, it's for the wards. You don't want to cross it directly yet -- we've not quite got it working properly." He levitated the bridge into place, then backed away from the doorway, and waved the Auror in with a little bow. "There you go."

Shacklebolt hesitated, eyeing the glassy bridge with some distrust. "Actually, I only came to see if Severus might be free for a few moments," he said, and Harry felt his back tighten.

"The question of my freedom," Snape replied, charming his own, wider footbridge, and crossing into the room, "was established some two years back, I had thought," he said, but Harry caught the undercurrent of tension in the snide words, and shot a worried glance at his partner.

"He hasn't done anything," Harry began, but then stopped as Shacklebolt rolled his eyes.

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, I _know_ that! You two are more paranoid than Moody, I swear!" He took a long step, clearing stream and bridge and all, to come all the way into the lab. "I'm not here to arrest anybody, I just need to ask for Severus' help with the De Castillo case."

For some reason, Snape's posture didn't relax. "The polyjuice potion won't be ready to test for another week," he began.

"That's not it," Shacklebolt said, pulling up a stool at the worktop, and half-perching on it. "He wouldn't cooperate with the questioning about his accomplice, so we applied for clearance to use Veritaserum."

Snape closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. "You've already administered it, haven't you?" he asked, as though he already knew the answer.

Unaccountably, the Auror looked embarrassed. "He underwent a full physical exam first. We took precautions-"

"But of course potions in the Catspaw family don't show up on a standard diagnostic scan, unless the healer goes looking for them specifically," Snape sneered. "Which, I venture a guess, your healer did not?"

Shacklebolt sighed, eyeing the polished copper cauldron which was acting as the mini-moat's cistern, as though the bubbling water held the answers to everything. "No. No, she didn't. Castillo's a leader, not a follower. And he's a narcissistic personality as well, so we really didn't think he would dose himself with --"

"Clearly you did not," Snape cut him off. "How bad is it then?"

"Ummm..." Harry raised his hand tentatively, but wasn't surprised when he was ignored.

"Brainstroke," the Auror answered wearily. "We had a healer in the room, so she was able to get him in stasis before the damage spread too far, but he's lost speech and motor control."

"Leaving you with an unnamed accomplice under unknown orders, who is now unable to receive orders or altered commands from his employer," Snape, obviously enjoying the chance to hold the Auror Division's feet to the fire, folded his hands over his breast and smirked.

"Er, I don't want to interrupt or anything, but could you both just --" Harry tried again, before Shacklebolt's angry rumble cut him off.

"Yeah, that's just about it. Only you forgot that we also have a frightened woman and her little boy, both of whom have already been targeted by this man," his teeth were a flash of angry white in the workroom's gloom. "This isn't about counting coup, Snape, this is about stopping a kidnapping and a murder, just in case you've forgot what's at stake."

"No, this is about you wanting me to use legilimency to interrogate a man who can no longer speak for himself," Snape shot back, face still twisted in that triumphant half-smile. "If I'm to plumb De Castillo's unwilling mind at the Ministry's behest, the least you can do is call it the rape it will actually be!"

"You really need to-" Harry edged away from the worktable, and dropped his wand into his hand as Kingsley loomed up to his feet.

"Will that get you to do it, or are you not through gloating yet?" the Auror growled.

"I want immunity," Snape shot back. "No reprisals from the Ministry, or from De Castillo, if he recovers from the Catspaw and Veritaserum. You put me under legal contract for the interrogation, or else you find another Legilimens to do your dirty work."

"Snape, a contract will take time," Shacklebolt cried, throwing up his hands. "Those forms have to be approved through ten different departments first!"

Harry, eyes trained on the floor, cursed under his breath and quickly redoubled the spell shielding on his shoes and trousers.

"Then I recommend you waste no time in getting started," Snape replied coldly. Then, after a moment, he rolled his eyes and gave a disgusted sigh. "Oh, spare me the cow eyes, man! I can't cast legilimens on a stroke victim for at least two weeks after the injury, as your healer would have told you, had you consulted her before coming here. The stress would further the damage your potions abuse has already begun, and would almost certainly kill him outright!"

"Well, why the hell didn't you just say that?" Shacklebolt threw his hands up in disgust.

"Because I want the contract," Snape answered without a pause. "My reputation is blackened enough without any added dirty work for the Ministry. If you want me, then you're bloody well sharing any recriminations that might-" Snape's rant clipped off as Harry ducked under his arm, grabbed the buttons on his over-robe, and started undoing them as fast as he could.

"Potter, what the devil do you-" He tried to flinch away, but Harry only shouldered him firmly into the worktable and kept unbuttoning. "Unhand me, you-" He swatted at Harry's hands as the last button came loose. "What do you think you're DOING!"

"Racking up another life debt," Harry growled, seizing the lapels and yanking the robe off Snape's shoulders. He grabbed the man's wrist then, to get started there. "I _told_ you not to wear your robes in here while the moat was still unstable! And you," he shot over his shoulder, ignoring Shacklebolt's bemused expression. "You'd better get yours off as well, before --" Harry yelped, whipped his hands away as the charms in Snape's robe failed, and the sleeve crackled, groaned, and froze solid.

"Bugger!" he gasped over Snape's pained hiss, and Shacklebolt's yelp. Somehow, Snape managed not to move against the mass of fragile, black ice that still hung from his wrists, and swathed about his backside in sweeping, rigid folds.

Shacklebolt wasn't so lucky; his robe was still fully on him when it turned to ice, and not only did he flinch at the sudden blistering cold, he flinched hard. The whole mass creaked, whispering to itself. The Auror's dark eyes sought Harry's, wide and worried. Then the transfigured cloth exploded into a belling, glittering shower of diamonds and sleet.

Harry ducked, shielding his face from the freezing blast. Then he covered his head completely as he heard Snape's robe crack a second later. The second spray came along with a resounding curse, bellowed at the top of Snape's lungs. Harry didn't think it was his imagination that the shrapnel from Snape's robe stung somewhat worse than Shacklebolt's had done.

"I tried to warn you it was trailing in the water," Harry said, straightening up and wiping shards of ice from his hair and neck. He was doing everything he could to keep from laughing -- as much at the outraged expression on Snape's face as at Shacklebolt's fascination with the drift of grey and blue ice crystals around his feet. "I really did!"

"Potter," Snape said through his teeth, white face stained with crimson high across his cheeks.

"I _did!_" Harry tried harder to school his face, but the gathering explosion in Snape's eyes told him he probably wasn't doing too well at it.

"Was that supposed to happen?" Shacklebolt's question diffused the tension abruptly, and Harry, pathetically glad of the distraction, hurried to answer.

"Well, something like that, yeah," he said, summoning a pair of towels from the bathroom down the hall. "Only we were trying for stone, not ice, and we haven't got the delay long enough for the spells to affect your underclothes as well. Still needs some work, I suppose."

Snape made a rude noise, but snatched the towel Harry threw him from the air without further comment.

"What happens when it melts?" Shacklebolt took his own towel, and then crouched down to poke at the ice drift with his wand.

"Then the castle elves mop it all up, and Potter owes us both a new set of robes," Snape growled, rubbing vigorously at his hair.

Harry, figuring he'd got off pretty lightly thus far, dared a cheeky grin. "Sure. So long as I get to choose the colour and style. I've always wondered how you'd look in Gryffindor red, Snape..."

 

~*~

That evening, when Harry Potter appeared for dinner in the great hall with viridian hair, nobody said a thing about it.

One glance at Severus Snape's stringy scarlet locks told all the story that needed telling, and such was the ferocity of their shared silence, that not even Draco Malfoy quite dared to laugh at them.

When Remus Lupin returned to Hogwarts the next morning, however, both men had returned to their previous hair colour, if Harry's was a trifle less wild, and Severus' slightly less lank and stringy.

No one dared make comment on _that,_ either, though nearly everyone at the high table noticed.


	14. Water To the Dead

~*October 23*~

_To Remus Lupin,  
Guest rooms, Hogwarts.  
Warded, eyes only._

_All right. It's all fixed. Coroner's ruled a murder/suicide, as planned, and there was no trace of that spell turned up in the exam. She dug about only so far as their dark marks, and then decided it was all she needed to know. How did you know about her sister being killed by the Lestrange woman, by the way? She could hardly even look at B, as you must have guessed, though Merlin knows how. I know she's not met you -- she told me that G was the first lycanthrope she'd ever laid eyes on, living or dead._

_Well, I suppose you always were one for the research, weren't you?_

_Anyhow. It's done, like I said. I've held up my end, as promised, and so that settles the life debt. Not that I'm not grateful that you saved me back then, and I'm the first to say it's a good thing, those two put down at last, but Merlin's bollocks, Lupin! I don't ever want to have to watch something like that again. Ever. I'm counting on you not to ever give me a reason to remember it. Yes, take that as a warning. Life debts are one thing, and fugitive Death Eaters another, but I am still an Auror, and I'll not have you forget that._

_Anyhow, you'll have about half an hour to look over this copy of the report before it'll turn to dust. And don't even think of asking me to get you another one, because I've set up a memory charm to go off at the same time. All I'll remember then will be that the life debt's been discharged. Of course I'll think it was that I stopped you getting run down by the Knight Bus when you slipped off the kerb, but we'll both know the debt's settled._

_Not that I don't trust you, but... well, you'd do no less, I suppose. Too many legilimens about in the world, and of course there's Veritaserum to consider, and you winding up in Azkaban is no way to repay that life debt, after all._

_Now I hope you'll take my meaning when I say that I'm glad the business is all over, and am looking forward to recalling not a blue, blessed thing about it!  
Sincerely,  
Daedalus Diggle, Auror, Order of Merlin, 3rd class._

 

~*~

Minerva transfigured all the tables from the Great Hall into longboats -- one each for the Houses, and a fifth for the Staff. Severus stood at Potter's side on the pebbled strand and watched Flitwick marshal the older students into huddling, giggling gangs to help levitate the boats down to the waterside.

The bloody twits wanted only clown makeup to turn it into a proper circus. Given that the charm for levitation was taught in the first year curriculum, one would have thought the matter could be accomplished with far less chaos, all things considered.

Students: hope of the future, Merlin preserve them all.

"What are you snorting about?" Potter asked without turning his face from the pink stain the sun left as it bled out across the sky.

Severus hadn't thought he'd made a noise, but since the brat asked... "I recall going to some considerable bother to make apparation on school grounds not only possible, but reasonably convenient," he grumbled, well aware that he sounded petulant, but frankly, too hungry (no, not nervous) to care. "Only to have to watch otherwise sensible witches and wizards tripping over each other to make the matter as difficult as possible." He waved a hand up the hill, toward the milling swarm, then grimaced as one of the longboats wafted perilously close to the Great Hall windows. "Honestly, they're idiots, one and all."

Potter gave a single, disinterested glance over his shoulder, and shrugged. "Habit," he said. "Younger kids can't apparate yet anyhow. Got enough to do tonight without worrying someone'll get splinched. So long as they get the boats in the water, and the kids and staff on the boats, I don't much care how." He turned his face back to the west, juggled the Sorting Hat to his other hand, and sighed. "God, I wish I had a cigarette."

"You don't smoke." It wasn't a question; Severus had tasted Potter's impertinent mouth often enough to know that there was no ghost of tobacco lurking therein, and there never had been.

"I could start," the familiar whine belied Potter's calm façade. "If it'd take my mind off how hungry I am."

"Pshh. I daresay you've been hungrier," Severus scoffed. "Merlin knows I have."

"Well, yeah, but there's a difference, not eating because you can't _get_ food, and not eating when there's plenty to eat." Potter scuffed up a blob of mortar from the damp earth with his toe, and Severus watched it clatter down the slope from the bell tower's footing to the water. "Dobby's been trying to get me to change my mind all day."

"Ah. Turned up with your favorite pork and apple pasties, did he?" For that, Severus could muster _some_ sympathy. At least when he threatened the elves with vivisection for trying to tempt him with chicken pie and toffee pudding, they believed him.

"And jam tarts," Potter groaned. "Those blackberry ones, with the ginger in. I can't believe fasting since last night's supper is really going to help us with this spell."

Severus turned to regard the setting sun as well, folding his arms over his chest. "You ought to be glad I didn't insist on any of the more _traditional_ purification rites."

A green eye cut sidelong, dubious and curious despite its owner's intent. "Do I want to know?"

Severus fetched out his most evil smile. "Oh, you might have enjoyed one or two of them better, I suppose. Perhaps the one involving enemas with hallucinogenic potions, and rubbing yourself in troll fat and hellebore tincture before spending five hours under a fever-heat charm..."

The look Potter turned on him was patently horrified. But his lips lost that careful, bloodless set, and his eyes no longer held the whispering ghost of a panic attack the wretch was too bloody Gryffindor to let himself have, so Severus met his outrage with a smirk.

Potter's eyes narrowed. "You're having me on," he decided, as if he'd know the difference.

"That has the distinct ring of 'I dare you to prove otherwise', Mr. Potter."

The boy leaned close, beginning to smile. "I thought you didn't take dares from Gryffindors." Potter's breath was positively foul, proof that he'd tasted not so much as water since the night before. But Severus had smelled worse things in his day, and he halved the distance without blinking.

"I. Don't," he sneered.

Potter's lips quirked, then parted just _so_ much.

"Severus? Harry?" Minerva's voice rang through the twilight. "Och, now where've they got to?"

Potter lurched back so fast he might've apparated. The sunset might've accounted for the brilliant colour of his cheeks and neck, but Severus was rather smug in doubting it.

"Down here, Headmistress," he called, striding down the pebbled beach toward the gathering students, and leaving Potter in the shadow of the bell tower, to try and recover his composure. He met the tall woman at the long slope of the launch, and tried to ignore the excited pandemonium behind her as nearly three hundred children tried to cope with being out of doors together at twilight, with nothing more than their teachers standing between them and utter, howling savagery.

"We have not much time," he told her, glancing at the five great boats as they settled into the rocky strand with a grinding noise. "The spell must begin before true night comes on, or-"

"Or we shall all be eating our porridge on the Great Hall floor tomorrow," she cut him off, her voice rising over the babble to continue. "and a great many house prefects will be answering to me, regarding their inability to keep _order in the lower forms..._"

The threat worked better than Severus had expected it would, actually. The surging horde of uniforms and hormones quieted minutely, and Flitwick, Sprout, Weasley, and Slughorn began trying to marshal them into lines. Minerva turned back with a smile that belied the unease in her eyes, and said, "There. It won't be long now, I daresay. I trust your preparations went well?"

"Preparations?" Severus said to cover the noise of his empty stomach. "Insofar as there _were_ any to be made. I suppose they did, aside from fasting and listening to Potter whinge about it." And compulsively checking the arithmancy, the spell translations, and the potions notes against every theoretical text he could think of, of course, but Severus didn't see the need to bring that up. "Still, he is confident this will work as promised."

The Headmistress peered at him over her spectacles. "I take it you do not share his confidence?" And no, she did not sound pleased about it.

"It's Potter's job to be confident," Severus said as over the students' excited racket, he caught the sound of footsteps behind him. "It's my job to doubt his sanity." He did not bother to mention the balance of his work to her -- Minerva, of all his acquaintances, would know how substantial his contribution to the warding research and development process had been. Potter had been in _her_ house, after all, so she had to know just how much work it would be to fill in the gaps left behind the little bastard's intuitive leaps. Lucky guesses were no replacement for accurate arithmancy and sound spell theory.

"You forgot about the part where you keep anything truly horrible from happening if it turns out I'm wrong," Potter's voice was obscenely cheerful as he came to Severus' side.

"Forgot?" Severus grumbled. "Not in this lifetime."

"Gracious," Minerva breathed, casting a nervous glance over her shoulder as the first of the student boats -- Hufflepuff, of course -- scraped off the beach and into the chilly water. "If it's truly so dangerous, then oughtn't we to take the students back to-"

"No, we need them here!" Potter, ever the hero, leapt into the breach. "They have to be on the water with all the rest of us for the spell to recognize them." Unconvinced, the Headmistress braced her arms over her breast, and Potter babbled onward. "But look, all the staff will be out there as well, right? And they'll be able to respond if they need to, so it'll be fine. I mean, we don't know for _sure_ what will happen, but-"

Severus rolled his eyes, and jostled the brat's shoulder to stop him blathering. "We have tested everything we could test before this point. And were the theory behind the rest in any way unsound, you may rest assured that I should not be out on the lake whilst Potter tried to put it in action." He met the brat's look of gratitude with a baleful glower. "It is one thing to put a Dark Lord down, after all, but quite another to convince lake water and glass to behave as something altogether different."

And then for some bizarre reason, Potter beamed a wide, guileless grin at him, looking for all the world as though Severus had just scored him an Outstanding on his Potions exam.

"It'll work," the wretched brat said, turning confident eyes to the Headmistress again. "The Sorting Hat seems to think so, even if Severus doesn't-"

His assurances cut short as a shout and a splash rang through the twilight gloom, and Minerva whipped about on her heel. "Lochaby! Tyre! Take one step farther into that water, and there'll be a heavyweight lockgelly in your future, with a keel-hauling to follow!" And then she was off down the strand in a tartan blur.

"What's keel hauling?" Potter gave a shiver, "Do I want to know?"

"An empty threat," Severus murmured as the Ravenclaw boat slipped from the launch, "More's the pity. I daresay a bit of naval discipline would get those Gryffindors on board rather faster."

Potter made a face at him, but let Severus steer him down the beach. "So would stupefying those Slytherins who keep egging them on, but you don't see me suggesting it."

"Hmm, I should like to see you try it," Severus replied, relaxing somewhat into the parry and riposte. "Ambry's a lightning draw, and Feliway there isn't Slughorn's new favorite for nothing." He could almost tell himself the churning of his stomach was nothing but hunger, while Potter's lips twisted into that petulant moue that only made Severus want to bite them.

"They couldn't take you and me," Potter came back, his undertone smug and certain. "Nobody could."

Well, that was probably true, but it wouldn't do to feed the brat's egotism, so Severus merely sneered as they came to the boarding steps at last. "No one, perhaps, but those you refuse to face..."

Potter's arm tightened under his, and the boy steadfastly refused to follow Severus' gaze toward the fluffy head of Hogwarts' new History of Magic professor and her husband, both lurking hopefully on the forecastle of the boat. "They're both here," he said in clipped tones. "And so am I. Isn't that enough for you?"

It was on the point of Severus' tongue to ask why, for Potter, it _was_ enough, but then he noticed the woman tilting her head to try and read the parchments which they'd brought up from their workroom, along with the other spell components. Her brow was furrowed and her lips pursed, and Severus felt his own lip curling as they drew near.

"The equations are complete, Professor Granger-Weasley," he scathed. "However, since you seem to feel your experience must improve upon the combined research of myself, the Headmistress, and the Professor who taught you Arithmancy in the first place, do, please, feel free to tender your opinion."

She jumped as he spoke, whirled with such speed that her scowling husband had to stop her stagger. "Oh! Profe -- er... Mr. Snape. Harry, I wasn't," she waved a hand at the worktable, her cheeks colouring brighter than the sunset. "I didn't mean to imply any-" Weasley gripped her elbow, and she shot him an annoyed glance, but checked her babble with a deep breath all the same. "That is, I've been curious about all this since I came back to apply for the job," she said with a forced smile. "I just wanted to-"

"Meddle," Severus finished, sweeping past her to collect the parchment and drop it into the worktable drawer -- lest the evening wind scatter the pages, of course. "It seems a common enough habit amongst Gryffindors in your year."

"Snape." Potter's voice was level and low, but the disapproval was clear. From the boats already drifting on the water arose the din of many youthful voices raised together in a faintly vulgar sea shanty. "Quit." The other two might not recognize the plea for what it was, but Snape could see the cant of Potter's eyes, the precise rind of desperate white, the grey press of his anxious lips.

Severus made a rude noise and swiped the blowing hair out of his eyes, then turned his back on the pair and pointedly dropped the cauldron with a clang into its iron rack. Potter's sigh sounded more grateful than exasperated.

"Harry," Weasley said, and from the corner of his eye, Severus saw him extend his hand.

Potter did not take it. "Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley. We're about to launch. Will you please go and take your seats now?"

The hand stayed out for a beat, fingers curling inward as though numbed. Then Weasley dropped his hand and laughed too loud. "Mr. Weasley's my Dad, Harry. You don't have to go all formal on-"

"The spell needs to be in place by nightfall," Potter cut him off. "This isn't the time to catch up. Now will you go sit down please?"

Hurt looks were exchanged, but to Severus' amazement, they actually went, taking up the last two bench spaces between Charlie Weasley and the Headmistress. Minerva gave Severus a look, all pinched disapproval around the lips, and sympathy in the eyes. He returned it with a sneer, and turned to find Potter regarding the sky as though auguring the purple and orange clouds.

"Tell me we're ready," he begged the sky. "Tell me we're not waiting for Draco Malfoy to finish his manicure and get his bloody shoes buffed before we can get this started."

Severus managed not to smile. "Oddly enough, the Headmistress elected to send Professor Sinistra's Tyro on an errand to the Ministry. He will be unable to join us tonight," he replied, taking the restless Sorting Hat from Potter's fingers, and setting it alongside the cauldron on the worktop. "Do try to control your disappointment."

Potter's lip quirked, but it was enough. "Suppose they'll keep him forever?" he asked. "I think I remember seeing a bell jar just his size last time I was there." Something like innocent malice glinted in his green eye, warming Severus' belly to see.

The boat lurched into motion, keel grinding against the sand and pebbles of the beach. Potter staggered, and caught himself on the worktop. Severus steadied his elbow anyway. "We can but hope..."

 

~*~

They summoned no _lumos_ by which to see: 278 bobbles floating over the heads of every human on the lake provided more than ample illumination. Eeerily blue-white, chiming in odd half tones, as though calling one to another, the bobbles were clearly a flock, and yet each one held its student or staff member in obvious focus.

Not all present found this a comfort, especially the veterans amongst them, but all had been briefed on the process, and all had seen the bobbles' reactions to hexes of any sort. While Severus wasn't precisely ready to count on a collective sense of self-preservation to keep order -- Harry Potter _was_ among those assembled, after all -- at least each of the boats had someone with a sharp eye and a modicum of good sense aboard to keep anyone from taking impetuous aim at the lambent globes twirling over their heads.

Severus and Potter were the only two without a glittering attendant hanging over their heads -- a good thing, given the number of ways that such a decorative distraction could spell a humiliating, and possibly lethal end to their warding experiment. Not that either of them would let on about that where the Headmistress could hear of course, but after a year of working on the project, some things simply went without saying.

Severus had a cauldron full of the lake water bubbling away under the same intense pressure and temperature spells with which Potter had initially created the bobbles. Also in the cauldron was the glass Queen left over from the forging of the five bells, the original Queen Bobble, like a bread culture to get it all started, and a single hoary thread pulled from the frayed rim of the Sorting Hat.

For once, it had complied without singing.

Both of them held the cauldron, glass and water and steam and steel, under their wands -- watching, waiting while the onlookers held their breaths and waited for the magic. Severus wouldn't have admitted to it under torture, but there was a certain vindicated satisfaction to be found in the arrangement; at long last, his work was unshadowed. Uncloaked by awful tastes and half-told truths and grimaces and secrets. If he could have spared a glance from the slowing, thickening potion, Severus knew, he'd see fear in those eyes and worry and wonder, but he would also see naked awe. And that... that was a heady thing indeed.

"I think She's ready," Potter murmured.

Sure enough, the cauldron mass had burped its last. Its lambent surface was now drawing taut, ripples leveling without regard to the gently pitching boat, or to the swirling magic overtop of it. The water seemed to believe it was glass, and to judge from his toothy grin, Potter seemed to believe this first step was something of a triumph.

"Indeed," Severus put a pin into that cheeky expression with an arched eyebrow. "You'll not mind banishing the cauldron then, I take it?"

"Yeah, I figured you were gonna drop that part into my lap," Potter replied in an aggrieved tone, for all his grin didn't fade. It was a thin shadow of the banter their workroom normally saw, but given the audience, Severus supposed he might let Potter off a little easier than normal. Unless, of course, he arsed something up, in which case, all bets would be off.

But the metal shell quivered under Potter's baleful glare as Severus levitated the whole thing aloft, and after a handful of seconds, the steel gave a grinding sound, and suddenly poured away in grains finer than sand. "Hmph. Wasteful," Severus observed, over the amazed gasps from the staff.

"I'll buy you a new one," Potter returned without a trace of regret. "Make her sing, Snape."

Her. Potter had been calling this orb of murky magic the Water Queen since they'd begun putting this spell structure together, and imagined what a central spell focus to the lake might do. A more fluid sister to the Bobble Queen, Potter had insisted. Ridiculous anthropomorphism on one hand, but Severus supposed it was easier than hearing the wretch butcher the word 'Homunculus' every time he mentioned the thing.

Severus raised his wand to the Queen, rubbed the ebon wood around her widest circumference over and over, until an eerie resonance erupted from the orb. The boat shivered at the tone; a subtle purr as the bobbles began, one by one, to pick up the note in excited sympathy. An unearthly chord that filled the air, the ears, the lungs and the belly. Every hair on Severus' body pricked, and his heart throbbed as though taking up the note in his very blood, amplifying it through his drumhead skin and echoing bones. Beneath the boats, the water's mirrorglass reflection of startled faces and phantom-lit orbs blurred against the deepening sky, and every student, every teacher, every creature in the world went utterly still with amazement.

"Wands out," Potter's voice, low and intense, somehow carried across the wondrous note. "Make contact with them now."

There was a rustle, as of thrashing trees in the breathless night. Twelve score wands slipped free of their sleeves, reached, and muted the howling orbs with polished wood -- muted only for a second, as the sound escalated again almost at once. This time, it _was_ magic, the passive, blood-deep magic that arced between a Witch or Wizard's cells with every breath, every heartbeat. Harvested, amplified, the Chord rolled out across the lake with a roar.

Below their keels, the Merfolk took up the song as well -- fey descant to the throbbing chorus, building to a crescendo that nearly pushed the breath from Severus' lungs. Then abruptly, a crash echoed across the lake, and jostled the boats like toys. Potter caught Severus' eye and grinned -- the Merfolk had raised the sluice gates to let the singing water pour like thunder into the empty moat.

The airborne sound disrupted, a hush no less intense than the previous noise fell over them. Then as the water crashed and foamed against the first tower's foundation, the glass bell began to sound. A long, steady peal with no more sound of impact or fade than the Water Queen had given under the caress of Severus's wand. A heartbeat, two, and then the water got to the second tower, and that bell sang as well. Then the third, nearly too low to hear, though Severus could hear a throaty, howling chorus answer from the forest depths. The fourth, high and clear, like a shout of sunlight; magic twisted and looped and drizzled and whispered in the air above them. The fifth bell spoke, pitched to the center of a mortal's voice, if a man _could_ speak such a wordless spell aloud to God and Nature without going mad of it.

Severus felt Potter's hand on his elbow, drawing his wand away from the hovering Water Queen. His eyes were aglow with inspiration as he dragged Severus out of their well-rehearsed execution, and bewitched by the colour, Severus let himself be led. Their wands touched, crossed. Magic arced between the tips; ebon dark and holly pale, and blue/white lightning in the gathering twilight. Severus felt the tension in Potter's arm all the way through his wand, and followed his skyward thrust without a moment's hesitation.

There was no spell there; not really. Magic, yes. Sky-fire erupting aloft to catch the web of sound alight, yes. A twisting borealis reaching down to anchor itself to each of five bell towers, yes. A settling, soaring feel, as though the lot -- castle, lake, humans, and Merfolk alike -- hung suspended outside the reach of time and space while light and sound and magic decided upon the rules.

Someone whimpered.

Severus caught Potter's wrist with his free hand, reminding him with a touch not to let triumph and wonder carry him away when there was yet work to do. The callused fingers twisted, brushed through his as they withdrew -- acknowledgement, gratitude, respect. (Respect? Never mind. Focus.) Then, keeping their wands crossed, Potter leaned close into Severus' body, stood on his toes and stretched until he could drop the Sorting Hat onto the Water Queen that still hovered over their heads.

For a mercy, the damned Hat didn't decide to sing.

Instead, it chanted the invocation; rhythmic and guttural words that shook the wooden timbers beneath them all, and slopped the lake water up the stones. The Sorting Hat incanted in a tongue so old that Severus could not even begin to guess what tribe had spoke it last. Perhaps it had been no human throat at all; such a cant as this could speak to ages, dragons, stars and stones, and bid them all to heed. What man could learn such speech and not change the world?

He felt Potter shiver against him, and only a last-moment recollection that they were not alone stopped Severus wrapping a hand around the boy's waist to steady him as he slapped the suspended Water Queen's gleaming side and sent both orb and hat spinning out over the lake.

"God," Potter murmured, "Good God...what's it saying?"

"Keep this place from harm," Severus guessed, gently pushing the boy back a step. "Keep those who belong here safe. Let this place be Haven, and Home. Let no evil or malicious intent pass." He smirked, and lowered his wand hand with a shake to loosen the muscles. "This ought to make the dueling club interesting, let alone the Quidditch cup."

Potter laughed aloud, but before he could reply, the bell-chord climbed to a deafening crescendo. The lake shivered beneath them, forcing every soul on board to hang on tight against the vibration.

Then the mighty chord broke as, with a sound like a vast, wet burp, the Water Queen recalled that it was not glass, and immediately slopped back into the lake from which it had come. The children yelped alarm at the sudden jostling, but their chatter was cut short as every bobble in the air above their heads disappeared with a sound like a strangely musical string of firecrackers. Overhead, the lightweb frayed out into sparks and sizzles.

Skin still buzzing with the spell's fantastic release, it took Severus a few moments to realize that the students crowding the boats around them had all burst out into enthusiastic cheering, tossing hats and scarves aloft, and not seeming to care when the slight evening breeze wafted them into the water. The Merfolk breached and fluked around the wooden keels, making a game out of timing their leaps to catch the discarded hats on their heads, and twist midair whenever a scarf caught on a fluke or fin, to wind the bright fabric about themselves.

Madame Malkin was in for a windfall of late-season orders, it seemed. He watched the silliness for a moment, then accio'ed the Sorting Hat from the head of one leaping triton before it, too, could be carried below. The merman flashed him a scowl and two fingers, and Severus returned the salute with a sneer, and plucked the dripping hat to safety. It spat the Queen Bobble out of its brim with an ill-tempered snort, and Severus caught it one-handed, then tucked Her back into the Hat's depths. Potter's buzzing warmth intruded on his notice a moment later, so close by his left shoulder, Severus could smell the faint, resinous musk of his cloak-warmed skin in the chill air.

"Well," Potter observed as Severus turned, "we did it." His lips quirked in a wry twist, which in no way hid the blazing triumph in his eyes as the deck of their own boat erupted into a buzz of excitement and speculation. The staff was no less delighted than the students, for all they'd some vestige of the means to appreciate what had actually been accomplished that night. And more sense than to pitch their clothing overboard, as well. Still, it was plain that, had Severus not banished the ladder from the deck, the forecastle of their boat would even now be swarming with giddy Hogwarts professors.

Severus rolled his eyes and stepped away from Potter, but only a little. "It does seem as though you managed, somehow, to achieve the night's work without either injuring yourself, or getting your clothes off," he allowed, rolling up the parchment references one by one, so that he would not be tempted to smile.

"Ha, verily ha," Potter replied, huddling his cloak tighter in the rising wind as the boats began to make for the castle's pier. "I notice YOU managed without assigning anyone detention, as well."

"The night is young yet," Severus reminded him. "And not only have we yet to disembark, but there is still your insanely optimistic dinner plan on the horizon"

Potter rounded on him with glee. "So is that a 'yes'?" he grinned. "You'll come along?"

Severus indulged himself in a deep sigh. Potter hadn't ever really doubted that Severus would go, and they both knew it, the brat only wanted to hear him say so. Severus took a deep breath and jutted his chin to launch a retort with teeth enough to blunt the smug glitter in those green eyes. Then a whisper of movement beside his ear made him duck and wheel, lurching against the rail with his wand in hand and a curse on his lips.

"Easy," Potter murmured, arm striking out Seeker-quick to pluck a fluttering origami bird out of the air over Severus' shoulder. "It's just a note," he said, crumpling the thing and shoving it, unread and still twitching, into his pocket. But something wary lurked under the Potter's carefully neutral expression, and Severus did not need to glance at the married Weasleys to guess who had folded the paper bird's fragile wings.

"Making assignations with your sycophants already, are you?" he sneered, shrinking the scrolls along with the rest of his workbench tools, and banishing the lot back to the workroom. "One might at least think you could keep your established dinner plans first."

There. That put the glitter back in the green. "Oh, don't you worry, Sir," Potter bit out, levitating the still-dripping Sorting Hat from the deck where Severus had dropped it, and sending it down to the Headmistress' waiting hands. "I fully well intend to see you thrown to the wolves before I make _any_ plans for the night," he said. "In fact, why don't we just save Remus a the wait, and apparate to the gates right from here."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "And leave your adoring public without so much as a nod?"

Potter made a rude noise. "I'd suggest apparating straight to the restaurant, only there's a moat in the way, and I don't want these robes getting turned to stone. And anyway, you know if we let them start asking questions, they'll have us explaining all bloody night." Well, that was true. Filius already had a manic gleam in his eye, fidgeting on the edge of the pier as the Ravenclaws finished disembarking.

Still, Severus was never one to let an opportunity pass. "You never were good at facing the consequences of your actions, were you, Potter?" he sneered.

The prat actually looked outraged for a second, before the deviltry erupted in his sidelong smile. "Let's just say I don't feel like fighting off _your_ adoring fans before I manage to get you and Remus at the same table for once." He held out an elbow, ridiculously gallant as Severus made a rude noise. "Now, will you come along quietly and quit stalling, or do I have to call you a-" Wisely, Potter bit back the word when Severus' wand zeroed in on his nose. He did not stop smirking though, damn him, and his hand on Severus' arm did not so much as quiver.

"You," he muttered through the gasps of alarm from the deck below, "are an utter and incontrovertible-"

The rest of the insult was lost forever in the sudden squeeze of side-along disapparation, but Potter had heard it before, so that was no real loss.

 

~*~

Severus hated Indian food.

For one thing, the smells were an overwhelming muddle, searingly intense in a nose he'd spent decades training to subtle discernment. Blasts of cardamom, curry and cumin intense enough to make his eyes water before he could even take a bite and subject his palate to whatever tongue-destroying, pepper-based agent his food had been dosed with.

The only thing not dizzyingly over-spiced was the bread, which was flat, hard, and about as exciting as chewing cardboard. Even the yogurt had a sour twist across his tongue, leaving a cloying ghost of garlic and dill in his throat long after he'd swallowed it down.

Rather like the conversation, actually: something to be suffered through on account of one green-eyed boy's hopeful enthusiasm. Three bites into the starter, Severus knew for a certainty the matter was futile, and the dinner was doomed to certain and spectacular failure.

Lupin's demeanor had always been calmly inscrutable -- sphinx-like, with a poise and a mystery which Severus had secretly envied for years. His scarred features showed only translucent emotions even under duress, like watercolour tints on a canvas of stoic mildness. His tawny eyes always still and deep in a way that Severus had held tight in his memory through all his years under the dual yoke of his masters. That stillness, that mystery had been in his mind when first he had named the werewolf in answer to Potter's ridiculous question.

The more fool he.

It had been easy enough to enjoy Potter's carnal experience whilst toying with the idle impossibility of an assignation between himself and the object of his schoolboy fantasies. What harm lay there, when playing along with Potter's wishful thinking led so often to incredibly sensual experiences? And once Lupin had appeared at Hogwarts, Severus had found it easier to acquiesce to Potter's hamfisted matchmaking than to allow himself to be drawn into the argument a refusal would elicit -- especially with the warding invocation hanging over their heads like a well-balanced anvil.

Now though, facing Lupin's conspicuous, hollow courtesy across an intimate table, Severus felt a distinct edge of cold; the still, deep waters were rimed with ice, the politesse a wintry breeze between curiously pointed eyeteeth. It made Severus want nothing more than to goad the wretch into some show of genuine emotion, to prick his careful façade until something _real_ bled out of it.

Potter's conversational gymnastics did nothing to soothe Severus' rising temper either. The idiot was all but turning handsprings on the table, trying to force the conversation into some gait besides a grudging limp. Discussing the night's spell-work filled up the only remotely amicable ten minutes of the night before the topic was exhausted, and the first of many echoing silences commenced.

Potter, unable as always to spot futility even when it was chewing at his knees, forged onward, ratcheting from topic to topic as each failed to spark his hoped-for camaraderie and good-fellowship. Italy's weather, various travel woes, spell theory, cuisine, music, and (heaven help them) even fashion all flopped onto the table, limp as a fishmonger's wares. It might have been amusing, had Severus been watching it happen at someone else's table.

As it was, however, Lupin's monosyllabic responses grated on Severus' temper no less than the brat's incessant natter. His own conversational offerings -- school-time remembrances, ethics of professorial disclosure, and mechanics of transformational curses -- prompted Potter to kick him beneath the table, and immediately venture into the realm of the vulgar. Severus shot him a venomous look in reply, and exacted his revenge by refusing to notice Potter's pleading glances for him to take part in the discussion of nude gay beaches in San Tropez, and instead, letting the idiot run on until the mortified waitress brought their food, and a welcome end to the topic.

For awhile, they ate -- or in Severus' case, picked over his meal in search of edible bits -- in a silence which, if not friendly, was at least not entirely hostile. Severus began to believe the evening might possibly wind to a close without fully depleting his wellspring of restraint. He wasn't sure why he was bothering with the charade at all, except that Severus didn't care to weather Potter's inevitable cow-eyed disappointment were he to get up and march out of the restaurant. So he decided to pick at his food, and chew his tongue through another half hour of the excruciating farce, and then go down the lane for some reasonably decent fish and chips he could take back to his own rooms.

And he'd just take the evening out of Potter's hide later on, and call it even. It was the best option on offer, he supposed.

But no. Five minutes before his self-imposed deadline, Potter had to go and bring up Lupin's next book.

"This is the one about Inferi, right? The one you were talking about this spring? You must be nearly done with the outline by now," he said, all innocent, desperate charm. "So how's it going?"

Lupin said nothing for a long moment, and his eyes did not flicker in Severus' direction. Then a smile appeared, humble and hollow and kind as he forked a bit of meat into his mouth and replied, "Oh, fine."

"Because, you know Severus knows an awful lot about- ow." Potter shot Severus a glare, and moved his leg out of kicking range. "Well, you do."

"Inferi were the Dark Lord's obsession, Potter, not mine," Severus hissed, now thoroughly put off his dinner, and any food ever again, to be honest. "I learned only what I needed to know in order to counter his efforts, and I do not have any interest in discussing that material in a bloody damned _restaurant,_ for Merlin's sake!"

"We're not," Potter thrust his chin, eyes glinting challenge. "What we're discussing is Remus _book,_ and if you try and pretend it doesn't interest you at least a little bit, I'll call you a liar to your face."

Severus bared his teeth. "What part of _social propriety_ do you fail to understand, you little heathen? One does not start a discussion of _cadavers,_ ambulate or static, at the dinner table!"

Potter had the unmitigated gall to laugh. "Yes, mum. So Remus, what did you decide about that chapter on containment by water? Are you going with the elemental angle, or the temporal?"

Lupin set his fork down with a quiet clack, and wiped his mouth on his serviette. "I'd rather not discuss it right now, if you don't mind, Harry," he said, and this time, he did look at Severus, with absolute neutrality in his flat, amber eyes. "Perhaps another time, when we're alone?"

And Severus realized he'd had entirely enough.

He crumpled his serviette, and flung it across his picked-over plate as he pushed back his chair. "Perhaps I can do something to improve the conversation now," he snarled, then turned on his heel and stalked off to the gent's.

Potter appeared at his shoulder as Severus was washing his hands, and one glance from those reproachful green eyes was enough to put his back straight up. "Dare to scold me, Potter," Severus said through his teeth, "and you'll be sprouting boils for a week."

"I wasn't," Potter replied, turning on his own tap and wetting his hands. "But did you have to bring up that thing with my dad and the greenhouse?"

"Potter..."

"I know."

"It is not my custom to remain where I am unwanted, and pretend it _recreational,_ let alone pleasant company!" Severus cast such a fierce drying spell, the water steamed away and left his fingers red and sore.

"I know, I know." The brat displayed his dripping palms in surrender. "I'm sorry. He's sorry too, I'm sure of it. Remus is just uncomfortable, is all. It's been years since he's seen you, and…" Severus made no effort to disguise his snort, and Potter's brows knit in distress. "He didn't mean to be insulting. You know that's not his way. Just... just let me talk to him for a minute, okay?"

"To what end, Potter?" Severus demanded, turning away from that painfully earnest reflection. "You'll tell him to play nice, and he'll pretend a little harder not to loathe me? Do you imagine I fancy the idea of being _tolerated?_ Do you believe I enjoy my colleagues _suffering_ my company so much that I would seek such patent ambivalence out in my personal relations?"

Potter blinked. "Ambivalence?"

"Well, that's hardly what's on offer tonight, of course," Severus bared his teeth to reply. "But with Merlin's intervention, we might hope to attain it before one of us curses the other over pudding." He shivered with the effort of keeping his voice down when what he really wanted to do was shout the rafters to the ground, blast the hollow shell of grudging nicety into so much rubble, and crush every soul who bore witness to his humiliation under the tumbled ruins of his pride.

Potter lay a hand on his arm; a solid weight, chilled and wet, but touch enough to ground a bit of his trembling rage, and allow the bands around his breast to unwind a little. Severus took a deep breath, let it go, and closed his eyes. "This is hopeless, Potter."

"Please," came the response, low and close. "Don't give up. Try a little longer."

Severus caught the hand on his arm, and laced their fingers together. "Why?" Potter blinked again, and Severus pressed his point. "Why does it matter to you that I should?"

"I..." he swallowed, chewed endearingly on his lip. "I just want you to be... _both_ of you, to be happy."

Severus ignored his self-correction, and did not let Potter pull his hand away. "And you imagine that Remus Lupin can make me happy?"

Potter gave a single, solemn nod. "I think he could learn how to, if you could learn how to let him. But you've both grown used to being alone, and not very happy at all. Maybe tolerance is just the first step you have to take."

Trust Potter to offer up such unarguable taradiddle instead of a valid answer.

Severus rolled his eyes, but he did release Potter's fingers. They stayed entangled with his own for a long moment, and then the boy leaned close and pressed a dry, chaste kiss to Severus' lips. "Don't give up yet, okay?" he murmured. "And don't leave. Just give me a minute or two with him..."

And then he slipped back out through the door, without waiting to see whether Severus had agreed or not. Trusting fool.

Severus stepped out into the hallway, his stomach uncertain whether it was burning from the wretched food, or chilled with anger. To his left lay the kitchen, bustling with cooks and servers all too busy committing further culinary atrocities to notice if he were to slip out under a disillusionment spell. Severus could see the back alley through the door, propped open to allow escape of the deadly pepper fumes.

He flicked his wand just so, felt the spell settle over him like a thin layer of grease.

A waiter rushed from the kitchen, passed so close by that Severus had to duck back to avoid his elbow. He didn't glance in Severus direction even once.

_Don't give up yet…_

Damn Potter, anyway.

Severus followed the waiter back to the dining room, keeping to the man's shadow as he approached the table where Potter sat in earnest conversation with an openly reticent Remus Lupin. Potter didn't glance up, and Lupin's eyes did not flicker in his direction as Severus slipped behind a thick plaster pillar, and settled down to finally learn the truth of the matter.

"Harry, I know what you're trying to do," the wolf said over the rim of his teacup. His eyes were darkly somber in the reflection of the window glass, and perhaps Severus could see regret there… or maybe it was just dyspepsia. "And I'm afraid it really isn't going to-"

"No, please." Potter caught Lupin's elbow, as though stilling he cup could still the truth. "Don't say that. Don't."

"But it's true, Harry, and you just need to face it. I'm afraid I'm just too-"

"Too old," Potter challenged. "Too worn out. Too tired. But you're _not._ Not really, you aren't. Tonks didn't care about all those things, so what makes you think anyone else would?"

Lupin gave him a look of stern warning. "This is not about Nymphadora."

"No. It really isn't. But it would be okay if it was, a little bit." Potter shrugged, and picked at his plate. "I mean, I know you loved her, and it really hurt when she got killed, but you loved Sirius too, and-"

"Love."

Potter looked up, quizzical.

"Love, not loved," Lupin repeated. "I still love both of them, even though they can't reciprocate. Just as I still love Albus, and James, and Lily, Harry. And that's why I just can't give you what you want from me." He ran a scarred hand through his hair, revealing streaks of silver among the gold. "I can't be what you want me to be."

"What _I_…" Potter sat back in his chair, startled. Then he giggled like a ninny. "You think I want to…"

Severus closed his eyes and told himself not to hex the idiot.

"No, Remus you've got it all wrong," he managed after a moment.

"Harry, I really don't-"

"It isn't _me_ this is all for, it's-"

This time it was Lupin who grabbed Potter's elbow. "I. Know."

Severus let his breath out in a long, silent whisper. His stomach calmed instantly.

"You know? But-"

"You've been many things, to many people, Harry," the werewolf's voice warmed again, but only a bit. "But you have never really been subtle, have you? It's pretty obvious you're trying to set me up with Snape."

"Well, at least I was trying to get you to _talk_ to him," Potter temporized sullenly. "It's not like I was going to shove you into his bedroom and ward the door, but I thought surely after all these years, you two could maybe just --"

"Bury the hatchet?" There was something dangerous lurking behind the teeth that bit off the last word. Potter heard it too, and his eyes narrowed.

"_He's_ willing to let bygones be bygones."

"And what bygones would those be, Harry?" Lupin's teacup clattered against its saucer. "The one where he violently murdered an old, ill man who should have been allowed to pass quietly in his bed with his friends and family around him?"

Behind his pillar, Severus nodded, feeling the motion unspool the icy knot in his throat. He had expected this. He had. There could be no absolution. There could be no understanding. Not ever. He had, he told himself, known it all along.

Potter, though, had not. "Dumbledore _asked_ him to-" the boy whispered, "Remus, he _had_ to do that! You know it!"

Lupin ignored the interruption. "Or perhaps he's thinking of the bygone where he goaded Sirius into putting himself into danger over and over again, until it finally killed him. Or the one where he got me driven out of Hogwarts with an 'accidental' slip of the tongue."

"Or the one where _you_ tried to eat him, maybe?" Potter's voice went brittle and hurt. "You did that twice, you know. Or maybe he's thinking of the bygones when you stood there wearing a bloody Prefect's badge and let Sirius and my dad be arseholes to him without saying a word!"

Severus blinked at that. He hadn't expected Potter to take _that_ view of his stolen pensieve memory, but something in his iron-banded chest uncoiled just a bit at the idiot's typically Gryffindorish defense.

"And yeah, I know you were only sixteen, and that Sirius and my dad were sixteen, and Snape was sixteen too, and you all were idiots back then," Potter went on. "I was sixteen and an idiot too once, Remus, and _that_ is what got Sirius killed. That, and all those damned years in Azkaban, that made him crazy about being confined. Not Severus. Severus didn't do that to him. You can't hate him for something he didn't even do, it's just not fair."

_Life isn't fair, you narcissistic fool,_ Severus thought with a clenching of his fist. But aloud, he said nothing, merely watched the reflections in the darkened glass, and waited for the storm gathering on the werewolf's face to break. A pretty young witch approached along the walk outside, her arm fast through the elbow of her wizard. As she passed, the light from the restaurant caught a flash of cold fire in the ring on her third finger.

Severus blinked, and told himself it was happenstance that placed the fierce glint so close to Remus Lupin's reflected eye as he said, "Fair? There is nothing fair about what Severus Snape did to James and Lily."

Severus flinched. Potter did too.

"He didn't- that was Pettigrew!"

"There would have never been a need for _Fidelis_ if Snape hadn't told his master about the prophecy."

"But," Potter reached for Lupin's hand, but the werewolf pulled away, implacable. "But Remus, I hadn't even been born yet when that prophecy was made. Snape didn't even know it was about my parents."

"Perhaps he didn't," Lupin allowed. "But he's always been an intelligent man, Harry. He had to know that information would probably get some innocent baby killed. So even if it wasn't his intentional malice that robbed me of my best friends in the world, he still did it. He still got them killed, when it's all added up."

"Voldemort would have found out anyway," Potter, loyal fool, insisted. "He'd have found out from Peter. He was in the Order too, after all, and…" he trailed off when Lupin's closed expression did not thaw. "Remus, please. They were _my parents._ If I can forgive him for making a stupid, selfish mistake, if I can lay the blame on Voldemort, where it belongs, then why can't-"

"Because," Lupin replied with terrible precision. "You did not know them. You love the idea of your parents, but the people themselves were taken away… were murdered when you were too young to remember anything about them at all."

Potter frowned. "That's not true! I remember-"

"You love the _idea_ of your mother and father, in the same way any orphaned child does; perhaps a bit more personal than the idea of a fairy godmother, or Father Christmas, but still objectively. But you did not -- you could not love _them!_" Lupin's eyes glowed, at last, with all the restrained emotion he had hidden from Severus before; a welter of pain, grief, anger, confusion, loneliness, and a helpless sort of fury that made Severus think briefly of a chewed-off paw, left behind in a trap.

"I knew _them,_ Harry. I knew what she sounded like when she sang. I knew what brand of cigarettes he liked, and that he couldn't stand Indian food, but he'd eat it whenever Padfoot insisted. I knew what it felt like to hug her, and smell her hair and her skin when her hormones would go crazy during her pregnancy, and I knew just how hard he could throw a punch when he walked in and got the wrong idea." Lupin paused for a shaky breath, his hand clenching a stranglehold on his serviette.

"I knew what muggle candy she liked, and what wizarding liquor would get him drunk the fastest. I knew who her study partners were in school, and I knew every test he cheated on. I knew them, Harry. They were real people to me, just like Sirius, and Albus, and Nymphadora, and I will _never_ get them back again!" And with that, his voice and his glower both broke. Lupin looked aside, dashed at his eyes with a soft curse.

Potter, stunned, gaped openly. "Remus…" he murmured.

Severus closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded. He'd expected that. He had. He had hoped for no better grace from the last of the Marauders. He turned to look at the exit, but Potter's voice pulled him up short.

"Don't you realize that Severus is a real person too? He's got a favorite candy, and a booze that goes right to his head as well. And maybe you don't go 'round cuddling him or anything, but he doesn't just smell like the things he brews, and he's got a wicked left hook when he gets too mad to remember his wand, which I admit, I get him pretty often." Potter sighed, poked a fork at his plate, and regarded his uncle figure woefully. "Do the people you can't have back again really mean you can't ever have anyone else? That you can't ever move on?"

"Harry, stop." Lupin's voice brooked no argument. "Just stop it. It's clear that, for whatever reason, you've decided you like the man. I've accepted that, and for your sake, I have made an effort. I have… forgiven him," oh, how cramped, that word on those lips. Lupin scowled at Potter's disbelieving snort. "I have _forgiven_ him, but that does not mean that I like him, or that I want to be his friend, or his confidante." And here, Lupin's tawny eyes raised up to stare at the window, meeting Severus' own gaze in the reflecting glass. "Or his lover."

Severus felt his chin raising, hardening, but the knife, apparently, had not yet been twisted far enough. Lupin released his stranglehold on his serviette, and placed it beside his plate. "I have forgiven him, Harry," he said, and pushed back his chair. "That's all you may ask me for. And it's more than he has any right to expect from me."

"The truth, at last, Lupin?" Severus said as the werewolf strode past his lurking place. "I'd wondered how long you would take to come 'round to owning up to it."

Lupin's step faltered just long enough for Harry to catch up. But when he turned, his carefully neutral mask was back in place. "Severus, Harry, please forgive me cutting our evening short. I've just noticed the time, and I need to be sure I get a chance to have a word with Auror Shacklebolt before he leaves Hogwarts tonight."

He stuck out his hand, stiff and hollow as a plaster figurine. Severus regarded it with a sneer, and did not reach out his own.

"Severus, _please,_" Harry whispered.

But Lupin had already withdrawn the false offer, hidden it under an equally false smile, and turned to the door. "Please, do stay and enjoy your dinner. My treat. I'll just settle up with the maitre d' on the way out."

In a haze of scarlet fury, Severus realized his wand was in his hand. Shaking. He raised it, pointed it at the werewolf's retreating back, and did the only thing that made sense.

He disapparated. To safety. To home.


	15. How Many Times a Fool

~* October 23, continued *~

_Sir,_

_My per diem has not been deposited in my Gringotts account in over two weeks._

_The terms of our arrangement were quite specific, and I have not violated them. I am capable of securing your package for delivery at any time, and will do so upon your remitting to me the full balance of monies owed._

_My reputation compelled you to seek my aid in your venture, and it should also dissuade you underestimating my annoyance should you decide to mess me about. I feel I ought to warn you that I am also far too much a coward to attack you directly. I find it a more efficient use of my time and energy to strike out at those who wrong me through their friends and relations. However, as a favour to the innocents, I do take care that they know the exact reason behind their misfortunes. It's only fair, after all._

_Whatever else you believe me capable of, sir, I suggest you believe me capable of that. Pay me what you have promised, all of it. Then I will deliver the parcel as requested, and our association may end on a mutually profitable note._

_With utmost sincerity,  
Your Associate._

 

~*~

"Snape, open the door! Come on, you can't just-"

"Potter, I am aware that you were raised by apes in the wild, but even you must know that a closed door means you are _unwelcome!_ Now go the HELL away!"

"I'm not leaving you alone, Snape, not after that! Come on. Let me in."

"GO AWAY, Potter! _Alone_ is precisely what I wish to be, damn it! I do NOT want you mooning about my rooms and trying to get me to talk about my bloody _feelings!_ I want silence, I want solitude, and I want a stiff drink, in that order!"

"Fine, I can get you your drink. And I can be quiet too, I promise. Just let me in!"

"Damn you, what part of "Solitude" is beyond your grasp?"

"The part where you expect me to just walk away and leave you all alone after hearing someone you care about say those things about you. That isn't right, just to... go like that. You shouldn't have to be-"

"I _wish_ to be! Alone! Without company! Isolated! That means that I wish for you, and every other living creature in the world, to go about doing whatever you intend to do, but to do it SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

"..."

"Damn you, Potter, just leave. Go down to Hogsmeade if you must play the hero to someone. No doubt at one pub or another, you will find some sodden unfortunate who needs your shoulder to pour out his tale of woe."

"I don't want to be your hero, Severus. I just want to be your friend."

"...Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yes. Fine. Be my friend. But go and do so from Hogsmeade. Or your own cottage. Or bloody well ANYwhere else. Can you manage that much, you imbecile?"

"...Fine. Goodnight, Severus."

 

~*~

The Three Broomsticks was crowded; packed to the rafters with Witches and Wizards who had seen mad lights in the Northern sky, and in the fashion of all reasoning humans, had thronged together to gossip, debate, speculate, drink heavily, flirt with one another, and ultimately conclude that whatever had caused the lightshow over the school that night, it was probably Harry Potter's doing.

And for once, that suited Harry just fine.

Firstly, because it _had_ been his doing -- his and Snape's, and Harry wasn't ashamed of it. And secondly, because minor personal glamories were far easier to maintain in a crowd. Voices, smells, and clothing all got louder, the more people you crammed into one place, and attention to details was the first thing to fade. So it was a damn good bet that most of the people jostling for space at the Three Broomsticks wouldn't look twice at a reedy little bloke they didn't know, who happened to be on his own in their midst.

Or at a reedy little bloke they all _thought_ they knew, and would have recognized at a glance, had he not been under a 'forgettable stranger' glamorie. And so, although any of the locals would have seen through Harry's charm if they'd given him a second glance, none of them cared enough to take one.

And that suited Harry just fine too.

He kept his head down, his elbows in, and murmured an occasional apology as he threaded his way to the crowded bar. The bar itself recognized him as a regular though, and it sprouted a new stool as he approached, jostling aside the two drinkers who flanked it in a sudden, subtle eruption of wizardspace. The girl squeaked and clutched a little drunkenly at her seat, and the man, who had obviously been trying to chat her up, swore as he grabbed after his pint of bitter and missed.

"Here," Harry slid their drinks to them as he took his seat. "Sorry."

"Twat," observed the man, and turned away.

The woman, though, received her pink gin with a broad pink smile. "Ta then," she chirruped. Then her eyes narrowed. "Say, aren't you-"

"No," Harry replied, wordlessly recasting his glamorie thicker, and with a coating of obliviation this time. "No I'm not."

Her brown eyes went glassy for a moment, and her eyebrows knit as though with a slight headache. Then she nodded. "Sorry. My mistake."

"Utter twat," observed the man beside him.

Harry ignored him, more than half-inclined to agree with his assessment anyhow. He'd somehow managed to alienate his only remaining family, and his only remaining friend in one fell swoop after all, hadn't he? Messing with a bird's tipsy memory and a bloke's timid pull was hardly his worst sin of the evening.

"What'll you have then?" Rosmerta dropped a bar napkin in front of him. Then her eyes went wide with startled recognition. Harry cursed inwardly, reached for his wand but before his fingers brushed it, the proprietress' usual smile had returned. And if her usual smile was a bit more knowing than normal, Harry was still pathetically grateful for the absence of fuss.

"Scotch please," Harry said. "Oban?" She smiled, and summoned the bottle for him, but Harry shook his head as she set it next to the highball glass. "Just two fingers, please."

Which she poured, after her smile turned proud and warm. Strange, given how much more money she'd have made off Harry back when he could have gone through the whole bottle in a sitting. Harry contented himself with being glad she didn't try and ruffle his hair.

"Something special going on tonight?" he asked as Rosmerta sent the bottle floating back to the shelf.

"It is a bit thick, even for a Friday, isn't it?" she laughed. "There's a party in tonight, actually. They rented the whole back room for it, so the regulars are stuck out here." She gave the bar a couple of swipes with her towel, and cocked her head. "You might go and see if they-"

"Here! What's it take to get another pint, woman?" came a bellow from down the bar.

"Money and manners, Ian," she shouted back, "and you've got neither!" But she went to serve the man anyhow.

Harry smirked into his drink, and then settled in to let the crowd's noise and energy wash over him. It helped in some regard; here were dozens of people who didn't care who he was, or what a hash he'd made of trying to get two friends to like... or hell, even to accept each other. They didn't care that he was apparently so desperate for affection that he had to try and engineer it in two men who had been abusing each other in one way or another for decades.

So much for his second-hand happy ending. So much for his proof that happy endings could happen at all...

Harry gave a sigh, and wished for a moment that he'd let Rosmerta leave the bottle after all.

"Pardon me," the girl beside him cooed as Harry sipped at the smoky, fiery liquor. "Would you mind my wrap whilst I slip off to the conjuring room?"

"Sure," Harry said without looking. There was a waiting sort of hesitation, then a disappointed sniff, and a rather-too-close brush as she clambered down and tottered off.

"_Complete_ and utter twat," the man beside Harry said to his beer. Then he flinched and swore as Harry swiped the girl's pink furry jacket off the back of her stool, and threw it at him. "Choo go and do that for, tosser?"

"Put it on the back of your chair," Harry growled, making sure to keep his eyes hidden behind his fringe as he slid down a seat and pushed the girl's half empty glass over. "She'll ask you for it when she comes back from the bog, and you can bloody well work up the nerve to ask for her floo address then."

The man stared at him for a moment, mouth working on nothing. Then he snapped his teeth shut and did exactly as Harry had directed. He went back to his beer without a word of thanks, and that suited Harry just fine too. The only person he really wanted to talk to just now didn't want to talk to _him,_ anyway.

"When have I failed to make it plain when you were unwelcome..." Harry muttered to himself, shaking his head. Snape had made it plain enough tonight, hadn't he? Whatever apology, whatever reparation, whatever comfort Harry had to offer, it wasn't enough. And honestly, Harry didn't see how it could ever _be_ enough. Intentional or not, Harry had effectively been leading him on for over a year, and Snape wasn't exactly the forgiving sort, was he? Given how hard Harry'd had to work to get him to believe that the whole venture wasn't an elaborate prank in the first place, Harry didn't stand a chance at claiming ignorance now.

He sighed, shook his head and drank again. What a huge bloody mess this turned out to be.

Shoes tapped close behind Harry's seat, and he turned aside, hoping to avoid another 'accidental' brush to his thigh. Maybe if he was lucky, the girl would take the hint -- and the change of seat -- with grace. The barstool creaked, but turned away from Harry, so he let himself relax and ignore the low muttered exchange beside him -- let it flow into the general human roar as he contemplated futility along with the golden shadows in his glass.

Then a brush of magic slipped along the back of Harry's neck, like the tickle of a quill. He jumped, turned with a glare to find not the girl he expected in the seat beside him, but a willowy, pale-haired young man instead.

"You're pathetic," he said to Harry as the wizard behind him slumped to the bartop and began to snore.

"Sorry?" Harry blinked, and then abruptly saw through the glamorie. "Fuck... Look, Malfoy, that seat's taken, so why don't you just..." he sighed in disgust as Draco picked up the girl's pink gin and took a sip, all eyebrow and fake charm, "...make yourself at home anyway, since God knows you can't start acting like a real person or anything. They might take your princess points away."

"Tsk." Draco sipped again, and grinned knowingly. "I note you don't bother to deny it."

"Deny you're an arsehole? What's the point in that?"

"Old news, Golden Boy. I've come to terms with it. Also, it doesn't make you," and he poked fiercely at Harry's shoulder, "any less pathetic."

"Piss off," Harry said through his teeth, and turned away.

But of course, Draco didn't. "Just look at you," he said, kicking Harry's shin as he crossed his legs under the bar. "Pub's full of people laughing, chatting, having a good time, and are you laughing with them? Of course you're not. You're hiding out here at the bar under a glamorie _I_ taught you, while you secretly pine for your little fan club to see through it and notice you're here. And why?" Draco's breath stirred the hair over Harry's ear as he leaned close. "Because you're too scared to go on over there wearing your real face, and walk through the door."

Harry put a hand over the embroidered monogram on Draco's breast pocket, and shoved him back into his own seat. "I mean it," he warned. "Go away."

"See?" Draco grinned, and finished the pink gin. "Just as pathetic as you pretending to run from me, really."

Harry, caught mid-sip, sputtered. "Run from -"

Draco cut him off with a leer. "Oh, you're good at the blushing maiden act, I'll give you that, but you keep forgetting, that I _know_ you. I see how you're always a step out of reach, but _only just_ a step." He leaned close again, smug and certain, with eyes as hard and grey as lake ice. "And you do take care never to _really_ get out of my reach, don't you, Harry? Never so far off that I might possibly decide not chase you." He leaned back again when Harry raised his hand, but his smile didn't waver. "Face it, you're a tease."

Harry stared at him for a long, silent moment, wondering how in the world he'd managed to convince himself that Draco was more Narcissa's blood than Lucius', or that there was anything of Sirius' kindness in those Black family eyes. At length, he shook his head, and took another sip of his scotch. "You're mental. Also, the most egotistical bastard I've met since Gilderoy bloody Lockhart."

Malfoy's smile went brittle. "No need for flattery, _Harry,_" he said the name louder than necessary, and Harry willed himself not to flinch. "And there's definitely no need for these little games of yours. I've already told you that all you have to do is ask me for what we both know you want."

Grinding his teeth, Harry started to turn, but a glimpse of his own face in the bar-back mirror stopped him; cheeks flushed red, eyes angry and bright and just as wide open as they must have been back in those abortive legilimency lessons in his fifth year. Heart on his sleeve, Severus would say. Giving away his every move before he raised his wand. If you don't learn to control your emotions, Potter, you will stand no chance against...

_Never again._

Harry schooled his face, but allowed his disgust to show through his eyes as he finished his drink and set the empty glass on the bar. "I don't want anything from you, Draco," he said, calm and level as he willed the words to sink in. "You're the one who decided to take an apprenticeship at the school; I didn't invite you, and I sure as hell didn't give my consent to having you allowed on the bloody grounds. But ever since you came back to the school, you've been sniffing around me like a crup in heat, and I am really sick of it. Don't," Harry warned as Draco's hand twitched toward his sleeve. Then he leaned away from the bar, and let Draco see his own wand, already in hand and laying across his lap. "The only reason you're not transfigured into a slug already is that I don't fancy the attention it'd draw."

Draco's face was still for a moment, eyes bright with some close kin to fury. And then he smiled carelessly, reached over the unconscious man, and stole his half-full pint as though Harry hadn't said a word.

Unimpressed, but very tired of the entire exchange, Harry sighed. "You know you're not welcome in here," he said. "You really ought to just leave, before someone realizes who you are."

The narrow face broke into a predatory grin, and Draco ran his toe up the back of Harry's calf. "That's more like it, Potter. Where shall we go; your cottage, my cupboard, a room upstairs? Or maybe you'd just fancy a go against the wall in the gents?"

"Christ, Draco," Harry cried, kicking the foot away. "If one of us is pathetic, I don't bloody well think it's me!"

"It's _always_ been you, Potter!" Draco shot back, teeth bared.

Harry glanced at the mirror, and thickened his glamorie. "Keep your fucking voice down!"

"Oh, right." Draco didn't keep his voice down. "Don't want Chosen One's fan club to see you cry, do we?"

And with that, Harry realized he'd had entirely enough. He dispelled both their glamories with an unspoken charm, and raised a hand to catch Rosmerta's attention.

She was on her way with barely a glance, Oban bottle leaping to her hand as she passed its spot on the shelf. "Another then, love?" she asked Harry as she came near. Then she noticed who was sitting beside him, and stopped in her tracks. "What do you think you're doing in my bar, Draco Malfoy?"

"Just having a drink with an old friend is all," he leered as her tone chilled the taproom buzz to silence. He paid no attention to the dozens of eyes that turned toward their corner of the bar. Every inch of Draco Malfoy's tall, elegant frame was carefully, precisely at ease.

Once, that daring poise had enthralled Harry. Once, he'd envied Draco's ability to stay cool in the face of appalling situations, not stuttering, sputtering, turning red and tripping on his feet the way Harry always seemed to do when people put him on the spot. But now, Harry was looking at it from another angle. It wasn't poise in the curl of Draco's lip, or the attitude of his chin. It was egotism. It was selfish disregard for anything but what he himself wanted.

And to his relief, Harry realized it was also decidedly unattractive.

"You brought him in here?" Rosmerta turned to Harry with a warning glower.

He shook his head. "Not me. I've been trying to get him to leave since he sat down, but he can't seem to understand what 'go away' means."

She turned a hard look on Draco then. "Get out."

A rustle and a murmur went through the crowd. Draco pretended not to notice, but his easy slouch straightened just a bit. "And here I thought this was a public house," he said over the buzz. "And according to the Wizengamot, I'm a legitimate citizen of the free Wizarding public, so -"

"This is MY public house," she shouted, banging the bottle on the bartop. Harry jumped with the rest, surprised when it didn't break. "Those idiots may have decided to let you buy your way free, but that doesn't mean I have to allow you to step foot on my floor, to sit at my bar, to drink my alcohol, or to harass my customers!" Harry winced as her voice broke with emotion. Down the bar, several off-duty Aurors slipped out of their seats and began edging their way through the crowd.

Draco's eyes never flickered toward them, but Harry knew he'd noticed. "I never took you for an elitist, Madam Rosemerta," he smirked, so shameless that Harry actually felt a little ashamed on his behalf. "Always rather thought you'd be a Leveler, actually."

And oh, but her smile was cold. "No," she said. "You thought I'd be a convenient tool you could use to murder three innocent people." Again, the crowd murmured to itself. "Once you've paid for that in Azkaban," Rosmerta went on, ignoring the converging Aurors, "we can discuss whether your money will ever be welcome in my pub. Now. Get. Out."

Someone pushed past Harry's seat. Someone tall and solid, with a fight in his eyes, and hair the colour of fury. "You've a lot of nerve walking in here, Malfoy." Harry felt his stomach turn to water, and his spine turn to ice as Ron Weasley spoke from his shoulder, just as though he'd never been anywhere else.

Draco seized the distraction with both hands. He spun his stool away from the barkeep and her Auror defenders, and fixed a hateful grin on the tall redhead. "Oh look," he announced. "The Weasel's come to piss a circle around his favorite party favour!"

"Don't." Harry warned, catching Ron's wrist in a grip of iron as he tried to raise his wand. The touch startled both of them a little, and Ron flinched, but didn't fight it. Harry's heart was thundering, and he wanted nothing more than to apparate away from this whole scene, but somewhere in the back of his head, Snape's voice curled around the word 'cowardice.' That was enough to keep Harry weighted down into his seat, but only just.

"Go now, Draco," Harry said, and was surprised when his voice didn't shake. "Don't make it worse."

"Come to collect him back to your little 'private gathering', have you?" Draco ignored Harry's warning as usual, and his smile grew ugly as he nodded at their joined hands. "What's the matter, did your other two-knut whores fail to show?"

That was when Hermione smashed her bottle over his head.

Butterbeer and glass sprayed wide, and the crowd erupted into pandemonium as Draco sprawled headlong to the floor. Someone screamed, someone fell, something crashed into splinters somewhere in the scrambling crowd.

Hermione, enraged, noticed nothing but her own foot and Draco's ribs. "You SICK... rePULsive little... COCKroach," she shouted as her target curled up tight to cover his head. Harry stared, too shocked to let go Ron's wrist, while Ron was too shocked to try and shake loose. Then one of the Aurors caught Hermione around the waist, and hauled her out of kicking range.

"Oi!" Ron surged forward, wand sparking crimson as he bellowed, "Get your hands off her!"

That might have been enough to set the brawl off in earnest, but the Three Broomsticks was an old veteran of youthful tempers, and so was its proprietress. Rosmerta had an area-effect binding spell on Ron, Draco, Hermione, and the Auror before Harry could even manage to struggle out of his seat.

The silence spread again, this time tinged with awe as the solid oak bar split down the middle to let Madam Rosmerta out. "So help me Merlin," she said to the room at large, "if one more of you hooligans draws a wand, casts a hex, or throws a punch, I will transfigure him," a hard look at Hermione here, "or HER, into a mouse, and let the kitchen kneazles deal with the matter!" She turned in a circle, eyeing the milling crowd like a gorgon. "Am I understood?"

"And I'll catch anyone who gets past her," Harry promised grimly, willing them all to listen. Willing them all to, just this once, not make him prove he really would do what he promised.

Rosmerta turned a salty look on Harry, and didn't smile. "Thanks for that, Mr. Potter, but I have this in hand. Sit down." Bemused, and a little relieved, Harry did so, but kept his wand ready all the same as she began to lift the petrifying charms one by one. "You two Weasleys," she barked as Hermione's feet hit the floor. "I'll thank you to repair that chair and table before you rejoin your party in the other room. Kashik," a nod to the Auror, "please cast a healing spell on Clara's nose for me. I'll fetch her some ice for the swelling in a moment." A glance at three more of the volunteers, and her brusque voice turned icy. "Amelie, Dick, Paul, please put Mr. Malfoy through the floo, since he can't seem to find the exit on his own."

Then finally, as they bent to collect the groaning, battered, butterbeer-stained man, Rosmerta took note of Harry's neighbor, still slumped over the bar and snoring where Draco had hexed him. "And somebody wake up Hicks."

And with that, the crowd resumed its previous, distracted buzz, just as though it were no strange thing for the Broomsticks to erupt into ballyhoo, and becalm itself within a single minute. But then again, Harry Potter was there, wasn't he? And everyone knew how things never failed to get exciting when _he_ was about...

Harry gritted his teeth as that bit of whisper snagged in his ear, and decided that he'd had enough. There was whiskey in his own cottage, and it wouldn't come along with an audience there. And besides, if he lingered too long, Ron or Hermione would surely try to --

"We didn't think you'd come," Hermione said from behind him. Harry froze, fought not to look up, and meet her eyes in the mirror. She knew better than to try and lay a hand on him, but the hope in her voice was as tactile as an enveloping hug. Harry couldn't tell whether it made him want more to squirm and run away, to turn on her and make her hurt for it, or to lean into the feeling and let go.

"I was just," he stammered, remembering the crane note he hadn't bothered to open. "I only stopped in for a drink. On my way -"

"It was my idea," Ron interrupted, his voice no less desperate, no less hopeful. "Asking you to come. Only it's not just us, you see? Neville's here, and Seamus, and Dean, and the Patil twins, and Cho, and there's loads of others as well, and-"

"And we thought maybe if it wasn't just us," Hermione put in, "maybe you could stand to let us finally-"

"Apologize," Harry said, turning his seat, and looking straight into Ron's pleading blue eyes.

Ron flinched, then blinked.

"Sorry?" Hermione tried. Harry didn't look at her. Not yet.

"That's what this is about, right?" he said, holding Ron's gaze with every ounce of his will. "That's why you really invited me to that party. So you could get enough leverage on me to make me sit still and let you say your bit. Because you figured I wouldn't make a scene in front of our friends, and you could say what you needed to make yourselves feel better."

To his credit, Ron didn't flinch this time. "Yeah. I mean God, Harry, I've been trying to make it right ever since-"

"It isn't ever going to be 'right', Ron," Harry bit out, slamming his wand into his sleeve so harshly that it scraped his arm. "Nothing about that was 'right', and nothing you say will change that!"

"I know!" Ron caught Harry's shoulder before he could push out of his seat. His long, Keeper's fingers curled around the hidden tattoo, just as though he'd known it was there, but his eyes, open, bright, and pleading, were what really stopped Harry cold. "Merlin, Harry, I _know_ it wasn't right. I know it wasn't fair, and it was a damned awful thing, but can't you try to understand that I didn't know what the hell I was doing?"

"I didn't know how you felt," he said, squeezing hard as Harry started to scoff. "I _didn't!_ Not really inside, the way I know now. I don't... I never felt that way about a..." at last, his blue eyes flickered to the side, where Hermione stood with watery eyes and tight-pressed lips. "About another bloke. It didn't seem like it could be real, you know? One bloke really loving another? The way my mum loves my dad? The way Fleur loves Bill? It didn't seem like it could be the same at all. And I _know_ I was stupid, and I _know_ I was an idiot not to realize it, but Harry, so help me, I didn't know what it meant to you."

One of them was shaking. Harry couldn't tell which. "You thought it was... what?" Harry asked. "A lark? A game?"

Ron's mouth gaped, fish-like while he struggled for the words. It was more than Hermione could resist. "He thought you needed it, Harry. He thought you needed it to stay sane after... after all that happened."

Harry closed his eyes, felt himself nodding. A pity fuck. Christ...

Abruptly, Ron's hand on his arm softened. "No, Harry," he said, voice thick in his throat. "Not like that. I promise, not like that."

"Like what then?" Harry couldn't keep the pain back anymore. It welled up, sharp as glass in his throat, blurred the soft light in the pub into streaks of light and shadow, shame and regret, the only point of focus being Ron's eyes. "What was it like? What made you think you -"

"I didn't know what else to do," Ron didn't shout it, but he might as well have done. "You needed something when Ginny died. Someone to stop you slipping away. And I wanted to help you, and I wanted to be what you needed, but Harry, _I didn't know what that was!_" At last, Ron let go his arm, but his fingers trailed along the line of Harry's sleeve as they dropped away. "I was guessing, because you were my best mate, and I wanted to make you happy...didn't want to lose you. And I did everything wrong, because what you wanted was just something I can't be."

"You shouldn't have tried." Harry choked, hating himself, hating them both, hating everything in the world that had made him so desperate to see love in that blue gaze.

"I know," Ron nodded. "All I did was hurt you, and hurt Hermione, and I didn't get what was wrong until I bollixed it all up at once. And I still didn't know how to fix anything, but Harry, I miss you. I miss my best mate. I miss my son's Godfather. I miss my parents' black-haired favorite son. And I'm so very sorry. I know you're right, and I can't just make things right again, but..." He took a deep breath, as though fighting down his own tears. "But I would do almost anything to get my friend back."

Harry looked away, unable to bear the open, naked pain in Ron's eyes any longer. Hermione's gaze was no better, all pleading gravity, and long rambling explanations held in check only by her slim fingers pressed against her lips. The diamond in her ring glittered like the tears gathered on her lashes. "Tell us, Harry," she whispered around her knuckles. "Tell us there's some hope? Tell us what we can do, _please._"

"I don't know."

"Harry-"

"You need to give me time to think about it."

"Time to think?" Ron gaped, desperation making his voice shrill. "Bloody hell, Harry, it's been over a year since you've even sworn at me! How much time do you-"

"Ron, don't," Hermione cut in. "This isn't easy for Harry either."

Harry blinked, took a breath. "No...No, it isn't easy. But it is simple."

"Pardon?" Ron asked.

"It's simple," Harry repeated, looking from one old friend to the other, and for the first time in years, seeing the allies who had stood at his back through the worst years of the war, instead of two lovers who had betrayed and used him. "If you genuinely want me to forgive you, then you'll let me do it in my own time. When I'm ready for it. And maybe it'll be hard for you to do that, but it's hard for me to do what you're asking as well. So it's only fair."

"Fair..." Hermione sniffed, clearly disappointed.

Ron, though, met Harry's eyes with a renewed determination. "Then that means you will do it," he didn't make it a question, though he did leave an opening for assent. "Sooner or later, you'll forgive us? We'll get our friend back?"

It was in Harry to take that challenge on reflex, but something held him back. Perhaps Snape's jaded voice had burned his ears for too long, but he couldn't just step up to that promise as it stood. "I can't tell you what will be," Harry said, pushing out of his seat at last. "But I'm tired of hating you both, and I think it's time I got over what happened. So maybe we'll be friends again some time, or maybe we'll just be people who know each other, and send Christmas cards..." Hermione's eyes welled up again, and Harry relented just a bit. "Or maybe you'll be the parents of my Godson. I can't say for sure, but yeah, it could happen. Just... don't push, okay?"

She nodded, but reached her hand hopefully, hesitantly, fingers curling in defeat when Harry did not offer his own. "We'll try, only... Only please try and remember that we love you, all right?"

"All right," Harry said, "I can accept that. So long as you love me from somewhere else." Ron's hand crept around Hermione's shoulder, curling her into his side as her face crumpled. Harry found at least a little charity in his heart at that. "Until I'm ready, anyhow."

"Until you're ready," Ron didn't bother to hide his relief, or his determination. "We'll keep asking. Maybe someday you'll stop saying no." Harry was mid-nod at that when a sly grin crept across Ron's face, and he added, "Dinner tomorrow night?"

If Harry punched his arm harder than necessary before making his way to the door, neither of them made mention of it.

They both knew it wouldn't have been his arm Harry punched if Ron had said it a week ago.

 

~*~

The night was a fine one, the autumn wind singing sharp and fierce through the branches aloft, but not quite stubborn enough to pick apart a warming charm on the cloak and hat Harry conjured from his pocket lint. The moon sailed high and white in the heavens, tracing the fast-flying clouds, Harry's steaming breath, Hogwarts' crooked rooftops, the trees, weeds, and water all with silver.

Leaves rattled and crunched underfoot as Harry strode along the path back to the school. If he kicked at them from time to time, and ranted a bit as he went along, at least the leaves didn't think him cruel for it. The walk was just long enough to settle his nerves, really. Just long enough to turn the restless, fractious emotion boiling inside Harry's chest into puffing, steamy breath, thundering pulse, and just a bit of a sweat under his robes.

By the time he reached the gateway bridge, with the old winged boars still in their guardian positions, Harry'd had his say on the whole night. From Remus to Rosmerta, from Hermione to the berk down the bar, from Snape to the bloody Sorting Hat, they'd each had a piece of his mind. The moon had listened, and the trees had nodded, and it had changed nothing at all, except perhaps Harry himself.

He reached his doorstep in a surprisingly good mood, smiling in comfort and relief as he dismantled his wards and let himself into his cottage. He shrugged out of his cloak, robes, and scarf, then sighed and stretched as the warm, golden light of his home enveloped him. At last, the horrible, awful, terrible, no-good night was over.

Then Draco Malfoy walked out of Harry's bathroom; shirtless, bruised, and holding a flannel to his bloody forehead. Harry froze, shocked stiff and silent between one breath and the next. His wand was in his hand, though he didn't remember drawing it.

Draco stopped, looked Harry over once, then turned to the kitchen table, where Harry's best tumbler stood half-full of brandy. "Took you long enough to get here," he said, and took a drink. "Where the hell d'you keep your wound salve? This cut won't stop bleeding."

Harry stared a moment longer, then summoned it wordlessly, stalked across the room, and slammed the jar down on the table. "How did you get in here?" he demanded, taking the brandy back to the open drinks cabinet.

Draco put down his flannel to unscrew the jar, and the blood immediately streamed over his brow. "Floo," he said, struggling to twist the lid open. "You might remember three trolls chucking me into the fireplace after your little mudblood friend decided to exercise her witty repartee over my head. Merlin, what'd you seal this with, Potter, blood wards?"

"Here," Harry snapped, and grabbed the jar. He hadn't thought to ward Draco out of his floo. Draco never used any floo if he could help it -- he hated the way the soot got all over his clothes, and he'd never mastered the trick of jumping to the right just as the spinning began to slow, so as to keep his feet upon exit. Even in the drunken, heartbroken welter of grief at Draco's final betrayal, Harry hadn't once thought of closing his floo to a lover who had never once used it.

The jar yielded grudgingly in his hands, but when Harry held it out, Draco just threaded his fingers into his own blood-soaked hair and lifted it away from the wound. "I think there's still glass..." he said, voice dull and low as he slumped back against Harry's table. A fat red drop fell from the point of Draco's jaw, landing with a splat on his milk-white chest, just above a long, pale scar that ran down across his belly. Draco took a breath, and the red spot quivered, then rolled downward.

Harry took the flannel up, and wiped the streak away before it could follow the scar down. "You should go to Pomfrey," he said, leaning in to examine the scalp wound.

"She hates me," Draco grumbled. "Ow! That's my hair, you idiot."

"Hold still," Harry insisted, charming the brown glass out. There were a lot of shards, but none were very large, and for as much as Draco was bleeding, none of his cuts looked particularly deep. Harry dug a finger into the healing salve, and smeared it on thick. "And anyway, I hate you too, so you might as well have gone to someone who knows what she's doing."

"You don't hate me, Harry," Draco breathed, shoulders slumped, hands lax around the tumbler, eyes fixed on the floor; the very picture of defeated dejection. "Not really, you don't." And for a moment, it was just like looking through the past -- like staring through the bars of an Azkaban cell at his childhood nemesis brought low. Like waiting for the sense of triumph and vindication that just never seemed to come. Like Harry could almost hear the far-off echo of Draco's cracked, tear-snagged voice as he admitted he was scared, as he begged Harry to save him.

With a curse, Harry slapped the jar back onto the table and turned away. "You keep on telling yourself that," he snarled, flinging the bloody flannel at the kitchen sink. "And it keeps on not being true! You used me! You lied to me! You made a game out of hurting me, Draco! Did you think that would make us best friends?"

"I was just winding you up," Draco's voice was still soft, still low, but something hummed through it just below the surface of those words. Harry didn't turn, knowing he'd see no shadow of it, or any other truth in Draco's eyes. "You make it easy, you know," Draco went on, "but it wasn't true, what I said. Not really. You're just so fucking hot when you get mad, Harry. Your eyes get so brilliant, and I never get tired of -"

"Of seeing the look on my face when I realize I'm getting fucked yet again?" Harry bit out.

A rustle behind him, a scent of cologne and soap and blood warming Harry's back as Draco came near. "I already said I didn't mean it, Potter. What more do you want from me?"

Harry whirled, slapped both hands flat on Draco's chest, and shoved. "I want you GONE," he bellowed as Draco staggered back, tripped over the chair, and sprawled. "I want you out of my life, and out of my job, and out of my God-damned HOUSE!"

"Harry, wait," Draco called as he raised his wand to summon a bobble. "Just wait for a moment, please. _Please!_" Cursing himself for it, Harry waited, breathing quick and sharp as his ex-lover climbed slowly to his feet. "Look, I'm sorry," Draco said at last, bending to brush the creases from his trousers. "Obviously, I made a terrible mistake."

"Obviously," Harry agreed through his teeth.

"I shouldn't have just come here and expected you to listen to me," Draco went on, turning as he straightened, his wand in hand and his smile gone fierce. "_Expelliarmus!_"

Harry's wand leapt from his fist, and the force of the spell blasted him back against his kitchen counter. Fireworks went off inside his head as it cracked into the cupboard, and when Harry dropped to the floor, a rain of plates and cups followed him down. Draco had him bound in spell-ropes before the last one shattered.

"Not without a solid binding spell, anyway," Draco said, kneeling to grab a fistful of Harry's hair, and sling him face-down into the broken crockery. "You never could pay attention unless you were tied down and gagged, could you, Potter?"

"Fuck," Harry wheezed, feeling a knee in his back pressing him hard down to the shards. "Gerroff!" But he didn't have the traction to kick, and a moment later he felt his clothing disintegrate under Draco's spell.

"Oh, I will," the words curled, smug and vile over Harry's neck as Draco's full weight bore down on his back. A naked, turgid prick bore into his hip like a mute and horrible promise. "If you play nice, I might let you get off too," Draco said, and fidgeted his cock squarely between Harry's arse cheeks. "But then again, little masochist that you are, you're probably getting off right now, aren't you?"

Harry snarled, feeling the jagged floor beneath him growing slippery. He was far too cold to sweat; it had to be blood. "Don't you fucking do this, Draco," he gasped and cringed as the cock nosed blindly at his entrance, caught, then skidded away again. "You do not want to do this!"

Draco paused, hands clamped tight around Harry's bleeding arms, hips cocked back as he mockingly considered. "Hmm...no. I think you'll find, I do," he said, and drove his hips slowly, inexorably forward again, lower this time, shifting his weight just _so_ when he felt Harry flinch beneath him. "Let's find out if you can still take me dry, shall we?"

_Never Again!_

There came a crystallized moment of pure, perfect NO. A rising blast of wrongness that shook Harry far more than the assault on his body. A surge of emotion so strong that Harry reared away from it almost by reflex, and barely felt it when the back of his head smashed into Draco's face.

But he felt it when the ropes evaporated from his arms and legs. His hand closed around something long and narrow, something that cut his fingers as Harry heaved Draco off his back. He swung around, slashing blindly with his potsherd, but Draco scrambled out of reach in time.

"Get out of here," Harry heard himself say. "Get out before I kill you."

Draco grinned, ghoulish through the sheen of blood on his lips and teeth. "So it's bloodplay you want, is it?" He raised his wand. "Well, all you ever had to do was ask! _Sectumsempra!_"

Harry didn't feel the cuts. All he felt was impact, shock, and pain, pain, pain! As though the spell hadn't just sliced into his body and face, but into his magic, his mind -- into his soul itself. He could feel it surging out of him, a hot, horrified rush of life that left in its wake only a clinging weakness, a feeling of drowning, and a ringing in his ears.

He slid down the wall, clinging to consciousness with every scrap of his will. Draco straightened, nose streaming and eyes blazing triumph. Harry's ears began to pound. He raised his wand, only it was still the long white shard of pottery, smirched red and shaking in his grip. The pounding got louder, this time with Snape's voice in.

Harry had always rather thought, if he were ever bleeding to death and about to be dispatched by an enemy, that the voice he'd hear would be his mother's, not Snape's. He sounded really narked, too. Funny thing, the mind.

Draco whirled, shot a glare at the cottage door, then lunged toward the table. Harry tracked the movement with a drunken sort of desperation, afraid to let the murderous blond out of his sight for even as long as it would take him to blink.

Draco scrabbled under the table for his trousers, fished something out of his pocket. "Can't stay, Petal," he said, and spat blood in Harry's direction. "I'll leave the money on your nightstand, shall I?"

"Fuck... you..." Harry managed, but Draco only unfolded the Underground schedule in his hands, and disappeared.

"Fuck," Harry wheezed again. Then he closed his eyes, and let the pounding roll over his head at last.

 

~*~

He woke to the sound of singing, low and soft and familiar, to warmth, and a gentle, enveloping comfort so profound it almost ached. He sighed, rolled toward the sound, and murmured, "Snape?"

Something rustled behind him, and Snape's voice moved gently across Harry's ear. "Hmph. It's tradition for men in your position to call out for their mothers, Potter."

Harry frowned, but didn't open his eyes. "She's dead."

"Yes."

The singing resumed after a moment, and the healing fire blossomed in Harry's cheek, shoulder and thigh. He blinked his eyes open, wondered for a moment at the odd texture above him before he realized he was looking at the wedge-shaped trusses of his bathroom's ceiling. And he was listening to Snape humming Phoenix song from somewhere behind his head while herb-scented water steamed up around his face.

Harry could still smell blood, and he could just hear Dobby dithering about in the kitchen. Swishing mop, whisking broom, clinking glass and pottery, and the house elf's angry sobs weaving through, in counterpoint to the healing spell. He took a deep breath against the constricting ache in his ribs, but it did no good.

"Snape," Harry said, but got no answer. "Snape, I'm sorry."

Still no reply, but the singing stopped, and he heard the rustle of fabric as Snape got to his feet. His face was iron-hard, and locked tight as he loomed, upside-down into Harry's view. There was blood on his cheek, and smeared down the opened shirtfront where his black robes had been pulled askew. His wand lay cradled along with Harry's in his knotted fist as he waited for whatever Harry meant to say.

_Sorry,_ his lips shaped the word again, in silence.

Sorry for bothering you, sorry you had to save me again, sorry I ever looked in your book and saw that spell, sorry Remus can't love you, sorry I didn't believe you were on our side, sorry I ever loved Draco, sorry I looked in your pensieve, sorry I hated you, didn't trust you, didn't understand you, sorry I ruined your shirt, sorry I-

"Wash the blood from your face," Snape said after a long moment. "Then go to bed." He bent down, scooped up something white and red from the floor. Harry realized with a start that it was Draco's bloodstained shirt, cast aside before he had even come home. The monogram on the pocket gleamed 'DM' in looping silver thread.

Shit.

Harry thrashed out of the cradling magic that was keeping him afloat, got his feet under him, and managed not to swoon only by grabbing the lip of the tub and holding on with both hands. "The floo," he gasped. "I never warded the floo properly. He never used to take it because of the soot, and he was here, and I didn't know it, and I didn't-"

"The elf has my directions for dosage on the blood-replenishing and sleeping potions," Snape cut him off as he turned for the door, and his voice was heavy as stone. "Do not attempt to alter or evade them, or he will bring Madam Pomfrey to deal with you. Am I understood?"

"No, I..." Snape paused in the doorway, one hand on the lintel, one ear turned, his back and jaw set in the same rigid iron lock. The words froze up one to another in Harry's throat, until the only thing that could squeeze through the press was, "Don't leave... please."

But Snape only shook his head and walked away. His robes whispered soft threats in his wake, until the front door's slam cut them off.

Harry closed his eyes, sunk down in the steaming water, and imagined it closing over his head; filling his lungs, drowning this horrid, sinking feeling of loss that suffused him; erasing everything, blending it all into floating warmth and the fading memory of Phoenix song.

But he was still the Boy Who Lived, even now.

And so when Dobby came to fetch him to bed, Harry went without a fight.


	16. Something More Than This

_Dear Mum and Dad._

_Why did you have to do it? Why did you have to trust the wrong people, and nark off the wrong people, and get yourselves killed? Why did you have to get married and have me in the first place? Why couldn't you have just gone on hating each other, like you'd done in school? Wouldn't that have been simpler for everyone?_

_I don't even know what made you decide you loved each other. I mean one day Dad's a stupid show-off who only thinks of himself, and Mum's a scornful know-it-all who thinks he ought to be horsewhipped, and the next thing I know, you're happy together, and dancing around and around in the falling leaves, like you've never ever imagined an ending that wasn't happily ever after._

_And then you're both gone, and the stupid picture's all that's left. There's no happily ever after. There's only me._

_I'm sorry. I know you gave up everything for me, but some days... some days I almost wish you hadn't done. I just keep on messing it up, you see? I can't love like you did, I can't make it work with someone who makes me feel like whirling around in the stupid leaves, and laughing endlessly. I've tried, you know? I really have done, but I'm just... I don't know how. I keep on arsing everything up, and then it's all gone before there's even a ghost of a happy ending._

_And I keep wondering if maybe you cheated, you know? Maybe there was some potion Mum whipped up in Potions class while Slughorn wasn't looking. Or maybe there's some kind of transfiguration for 'turn idiot to husband'... but then I look in the mirror, and I see that stupid scar, and I have to admit it's more likely that the only love I'm ever going to know is the love that saved me from Voldemort all those years ago._

_I should be satisfied with that... but it's really hard. Is it so selfish of me to want a love like that, but one I can actually keep?_

_I guess I should stop whinging about it though. I mean, alive and alone is better than dead and all together, right? That's what your sacrifice was all about. But I just... guess I needed to get it off my chest. And right now it seems like you're the only people I have left to tell it to._

_Pathetic. I know. Especially since I know good and well that Hedwig isn't going to take this letter anywhere..._

_There's someone at the door again. Dobby's tired of turning people away, I suppose. I ought to go and do it myself. The way they're pounding, I don't think they're going to just get tired of it and leave this time... I wish they'd just let me sleep._

_I miss you, Mum. I miss you, Dad.  
I wish you were here... or maybe that I was there. I don't know for sure.  
Harry_

 

~* October 27th *~

"Hang on a minute," Harry grumbled, watching his letter crumble to ash in the grate. When it was done, he wrapped his rug more securely around his shoulders, and went to un-ward the door.

Remus actually looked a little surprised when Harry appeared on the threshold. He covered it quickly though, and his raised eyebrows and brief frown might have been prompted by the state of Harry's unwashed hair and clothing. "Well. I'd say good morning," he observed with a hesitant smile, "only you don't much look as though you're having one."

Harry shook his head and swiped at his nose as he stepped back out of the doorway. "I'm sick. I told McGonagall I was sick," he grumbled. "And I am. She gave me the week off. I wasn't just sitting about and sulking, you know, I really do feel like hell."

Remus' smile warmed, and he brushed a hand across Harry's arm in mute apology. "I can see that. Have you gone to see Pomf-"

"No." Harry sighed, and flung himself back into the easy chair which had become his nest over the past three days. "It's just a cold. Or flu or something. I've got potions..." He nodded at the row of bottles lined up on the table beside him, each one emptied to precisely the expected level of three days' dosage. Not one of them brewed to deal in any way with fever, aches, or the astonishing amounts of phlegm Harry's head was producing. But Remus didn't have to know that. "And anyway," Harry coughed, "Pomfrey's always said sleeping was the best cure for this kind of thing."

Remus laughed, and took the other chair. _That_ other chair. The one Snape fucked him over the back of, the one Harry had promised himself twenty times since Friday, that he would burn, just as soon as he was well again. Harry fidgeted, and hoped that Remus wouldn't notice the smell of sex all over the upholstery.

"She generally says that to stop every sprog with a sniffle from trying to skive off classes, you know," Remus said, as if he hadn't noticed Harry's blush. "But there actually are some potions and charms that help it pass more quickly. I could firecall her, if you've got some floo powder-"

"No!" Remus froze, alarmed when Harry all but lunged out of his seat. Abashed, Harry put his wand down, and rubbed his sore neck. "I... It's closed. The floo, I mean. Not working right now." Remus' eyebrow lifted, and Harry shrugged. "People kept firecalling me when I was trying to sleep, so I shut it down." If his voice sounded tight and wavery, well that was due to all the snot, right?

"We were only worried about you, Harry," Remus said in that calm, unprovocative voice that Harry remembered from Sirius' worst times at Grimmauld Place. "Nobody had seen you since Friday, after all. You wouldn't even let Minerva in when she came down on Saturday morning-"

"I didn't want to cough on her, and get her sick!"

Remus held up a hand. "I understand. But you can see why we'd all be worried, can't you?"

Harry couldn't, really. He'd bloody well killed Voldemort, after all. Twice! Or seven times, if you counted all the horcruxes separately, which, on some days, Harry was entirely inclined to do. Surely he could be trusted to look after himself during a trifling little cold!

But Harry knew that if he said so, it would bring that thoughtful sadness back into Remus' eyes. That, he didn't want to face, so Harry coughed twice, reached for his tea, and thought up a peace offering. "Yeah. I'm sorry. But I still really don't want the floo open, okay? The green flame really hurts my eyes, and the floo powder smoke makes my head ache. I'll send Dobby to ask Madam Pomfrey for something later on, I promise."

Remus nodded, though he didn't look convinced. He made his own peace offering though, by way of a change of subject. "So," he ventured, "Snape came to visit me."

Harry coughed to hide his dread. Remus didn't much _look_ as though he was missing a pound of flesh, but then again, werewolves were strong, and Remus was a crack duelist. It could also account for Snape's complete absence since Friday if he were dead in a ditch somewhere… "He, er, did?"

"Mm." Remus nodded. "I'd told Minerva this weekend that I meant to return back home tonight. I suppose she contacted Snape, wherever he'd got to, and let him know, because apparently he decided that the two of us had some business to conclude before I lef-"

"You're leaving?" Harry's voice cracked as he cut in. "But you were meant to stay another week!"

"I know. And I'm sorry, Harry." Remus ran a hand through his hair, making silver shine through gold in the firelight. "It's just... I'd forgot how damp England can be, and how the cold just settles into my bones when the weather changes. It'll be full moon in a few days as well, and I should really prefer to deal with my change at home, instead of that dreadful shack. Surely you can understand why-"

Harry shot him a glare. "God, you must think I'm stupid."

That shut Remus up, and he had the grace to look abashed. "Well, that _was_ a factor in my decision, I'll admit it. But Harry, please try and understand how hard it is for me to come back here at all." He waved a hand, the gesture taking in far more than the cottage around them. "Everything here in England reminds me of something I've lost. Even you do, Harry, with James' hair and Lily's eyes. And though I love you, and I never want you to doubt that, it's a bit much to take all of that together... and then to pile this business with Snape on top of it as well… I don't think I was quite as prepared to come back again as I'd supposed, is all."

Harry dropped his head weakly back against the chair, too tired to even think of an argument. It was all bollixed up, and he didn't blame Remus for wanting out. Harry rather wanted out himself, only he had nowhere left to go, really, did he?

"I'm sorry," he said. It was weak, and it would fix nothing at all, but it was all Harry had to offer.

Remus leaned across the space between them, and slipped his hand over Harry's own. "Harry... I don't blame you for it. Truly." Harry glanced at him, afraid to believe the words. Remus only smiled. "I don't anymore, at least. You thought it would make someone you love happy. How could I hold a grudge against you for something like that?"

Harry could think of a few ways, but he decided to take the pardon at face value anyhow. It was likely to be the last he could expect for a while. "It was kind of stupid of me," he still had to venture.

"Mm. Ill-judged, is more how I'd put it," Remus agreed, and sat back in his chair.

"So... Se-" Harry coughed, and began again. "Snape came to see you, and you're leaving early. I guess it was pretty awful, huh?"

"Surprisingly, no. He was in a foul enough mood, but for once, he didn't seem inclined to take it out on me. We had what passes for a civil conversation, actually." That caught Harry's attention, and he couldn't stop a quizzical blink. Remus laughed. "I know. If I'd realized earlier that insulting him to his face was the way to be treated as an equal, I might have started doing that long ago."

"Didn't work for Sirius," Harry said, not amused.

"Fair point. Still. We came to an agreement about the Wolfsbane potion."

The potions curdled in Harry's stomach abruptly. "He's still going to make it for you, isn't he?" he begged. "He can't just stop because of-"

"Harry. We both feel it's best that he not brew the potion for me any more." Remus held up a hand to forestall Harry's further outburst. "He made a replacement brew that will last me through until spring, but we talked about... things, and. Well. We'd both just feel more comfortable if I paid some other brewer to make his adjusted formula for me from now on. It makes things simpler for everyone, you understand?"

Simpler. Harry closed his eyes. One less reason why Snape would have to talk to Harry. One less entanglement. One more door closed, one more bridge in flames. There came a rustle of cloth beside him, and Harry swaddled his hand under the rugs before Remus could reach out and take it again.

"I talked to Ron too," he blurted out the first thing he could think of, anything to divert the conversation from its current destination. "Him and Hermione. They're still prats, but I... I let them apologize. Properly, I mean..." He trailed off, aware that this conversation might well be worse.

"I'm not actually surprised," Remus said after an eloquent silence. "Considering that he's been at home since Friday, nursing your namesake through just the same sort of cold you seen to have caught. Hermione didn't say anything about you three talking, but the coincidence seemed significant once Draco showed back up without the least sign of illness. It was clear _he_ couldn't have been the contagious one."

Harry's skin went cold all over. "Showed back up?" he asked, in as level a voice as he could manage.

"Well, yes. This morning at breakfast, actually." Curiousity burned in Remus' amber gaze, but he managed not to ask. "He's on thin ice with Sinistra over the absence, actually. Three days gone without permission, and with neither apology, nor a single word of explanation to his Preceptor once he's returned? Tyros have been sent down for far less."

"Oh?" It was all Harry could manage, with hot, acid sick pressing up the back of his throat. His stomach twisted.

"Minerva seemed more than ready to turf him out on his ear," Remus nodded. "But Sinistra seems to have made a case of waiting for Snape's opinion. Solidarity among Slytherins, and all that, I suppose." Remus' tone was joking, but his eyes were grave, perceptive, and more than a little worried.

Harry managed to cough up a smile for him. "What does Slughorn say about it?"

"That Draco mustn't be so bad, if you were willing to speak up for him, and we all ought to trust the Chosen One's judgment ... Good heavens, Harry, you've gone green! Are you going to sick up? _Accio_ ashcan!"

Harry swallowed hard, waved a hand, and the ashcan drifted away. "No, it's all right. I'm fine." He took a deep breath, blinked hard at the fireback, and nodded. "I am. I'm fine. I don't though." He stole a glance at Remus. "Fancy Draco, I mean. Not anymore. Don't even like him. Sure as fuck don't trust him. Not that I really did in the first place. That was just a really stupid phase I got into because I was being an idiot, and I never should have-"

He flinched silent as Remus' hand pressed over his shoulder, landing with innocent accuracy just where the slashing spell had cut through his tattoo. It was still sore, that stretched, pink scar, but that wasn't what made the breath escape between Harry's teeth in a thin, frightened hiss.

"It's all right, Harry," Remus said, rubbing his thumb back and forth against the furry knit rug that covered Harry's shoulders. "We don't control who we fall in love with, or why, or for how long. It just happens, you know? And we deal with it as best we can."

"We don't?" Harry shivered, and tried not to squirm. It was only Remus, for God's sake! Just Remus! Remus wasn't going to hurt him, hit him, cut him up, rape him- Harry shook his head, hard.

"Do you suppose I'd have gone and fallen in love with Sirius Black if I'd had a choice in the matter?" Remus laughed, taking his hand back at last. He strode to Harry's drinks cabinet and fetched out a bottle of rum, along with two teacups. "Merlin, Harry, he was practically born with his headstone already carved: 'Here lies Sirius Black. He probably deserved it.'"

"Did he?" Harry mused, not quite able to care that he probably looked pathetic. "Did he really deserve it?"

And at last the sadness flashed in Remus' eyes as he shook his head and poured tea over the rum. "I don't think anybody really deserves what they get, do they? You just do what you can with whatever comes your way, and hope it turns out to be enough."

"How do you know though?" Harry asked, taking his drink with absent fingers. "If it's good enough?"

Remus thought in silence, blowing gently across the surface of his tea. Then he raised his cup in salute, and fetched out a wry sort of smile. "If I ever work that out," he promised, "I'll be sure to let you know."

 

~*~

Remus stayed for most of the afternoon. Also for two bottles of rum, and most of a bottle of cognac for afters.

Far as he knew, Harry managed to keep up with him, but somehow he didn't quite remember just when his friend had left, or how -- or for that matter, if -- Remus had been sober enough to safely floo home when his international transit pass opened up, all brilliant raspberry pink in Harry's fireplace.

Nor, precisely, did Harry recall how he'd come to be lying naked in his bathroom stall, with his head wedged against the porcelain stool, his arse against the threshold, and his legs straight up against the door. Also, quite cold, and liberally spattered with blue paint.

His head was utterly impacted, and pounding as though there were a dozen trolls practicing grand jeté where his brain ought to be. Thankfully, the tiny room was dark, the only faint light leaking with the icy draught around Harry's hipbones.

In true Gryffindor spirit, Harry tried to sniff, tried to sneeze, then blinked in pain, and decided he was horribly, horribly hung over. Or possibly dead. Either would do, but Harry didn't think being dead would hurt quite so much unless one had been a Death Eater or a Ministry employee in life, and thus really deserved it.

The pounding got louder, and there seemed to be shouting in, but Harry couldn't quite make it out. And he didn't seem to be able to work out how to move either. His legs were utterly asleep; as numb and unresponsive as hunks of blue-paint-speckled meat, dangling in the air above him. He soon learned that the stall was a bit too narrow for him to roll to the side, and his legs too numb to fold down to fit. Scootching farther under the toilet was out of the question, house elf or no, so...

Wait.

House elf. Of course! Dobby would still love him, even if Harry was an utter tit, and did stupid things to arse up every friendship he had! Dobby would love him as long as he could be useful! And God, but Dobby could be useful here...

It took Harry three tries to manage enough of a croak that he could call Dobby's name. Then all at once, there came an explosion of cheery sparks, a blast of light, and a deafening ping that made Harry wish he were still unconscious.

"Mister Severus Snape Sir tells Dobby that he must ask Harry Potter to say _Finite Incantatem,_" the squeaky voice thundered from just above his head. Harry hid behind his arms and begged for mercy with a desperate whimper.

Something cold prodded at his knuckles. Harry flinched and grabbed the thin wooden rod on reflex. Magic buzzed through him, followed by a wave of nausea, and an urge to try and recite every profane word he'd ever learned. His throat managed only a croak though, and when Harry risked a glance through his eyelashes, he found Dobby upside down, and looming over him like an earnest little nightmare in far too many hats.

He swallowed. "Ab I goig to die?"

The house elf made a noise like a teakettle boiling over, shoved both his tiny fists into his mouth, and danced in place on the toilet seat. "Oh, Harry Potter mustn't say that! Dobby is bad to let him think it! Bad! Bad! Bad!"

"Wait, stob thubbing, Dobby, god please stob thubbing..." Harry took a breath, and rubbed at his eyes, wincing as his wand jabbed him in the nose. "You said Snabe wadted sobethig. Whad was it?"

"Harry Potter must say _Finite Incatatem,_" the house elf whispered through his fingers.

"Why the hell would he wad be to say _Fidite Idcadtateb?_" Harry wondered. In his hand, his wand twitched, as though of its own accord.

Then all around him, Harry felt his his house wards crashing down.

"SHIDE!" he yelped as he heard the front door bash off the wall, and his cloak-tree crash to the floor. He covered his face again, and groaned as Snape's hall-eating stride pounded like a drum across the cottage floor, each footfall precise and furious. "Christ, Potter," Harry groaned to himself. "Vodebort should just have god you drunk. You'd have fuckig hadded hib the war odda plade."

"I'd have killed you first," Snape assured him, voice low and hard from just the other side of the door. "Are you coming out of there now, or am I to fetch you out by force?"

"Er..." Harry shared a silent, desperate look with Dobby, and managed to curl his legs down against his chest. At which point, he realized that he really _really_ needed to have a piss. "It's by bog," he temporized. "I'b sort of usig it."

"Your voice is coming from the floor, Potter," Snape replied. "Either you've been sleeping in your toilet, or else you have some decidedly disgusting sexual inclinations, which you will henceforth be sure never to mention to me."

"Sexual- OW!" Harry tried to sit up, banged his head on the lip of the toilet, and clutched it in both hands. "Fuggig HELL, that hurts!"

"And we venture still farther into the realm of the grotesque," Snape muttered as Dobby hopped from foot to foot, and whimpered in confusion.

'Help me!' Harry mouthed silently at the elf. Too late. The handle by his heel tilted down, and the door shoved hard against Harry's arse, wedging him even more firmly against the toilet.

"FUG!" he yelped, kicking back as hard as he could with his still-numb legs. Not very hard at all, really. The door barely shivered.

Snape, though, got the idea. A moment later, the door disappeared entirely, and Harry's legs flopped out into his bathing room with an echoing slap, missing Snape only by dint of a brisk dodge to the left on his part.

Harry, finally having the traction to do so, rolled to his knees, and scrambled desperately back to the toilet. Dobby pinged out of sight a bare second before Harry flung the lid up, and got about his long-delayed business.

It was several blissful moments before Harry could spare the attention to notice that Snape wasn't laughing. Not out loud, anyhow.

He dared a look over his shoulder, and groaned. Snape was leaning on the doorjamb, one eyebrow cocked, and one side of his mouth twisted in a sneer of delight -- Christmas and all his Birthdays rolled up into an absolute goldmine of humiliation possibilities.

Harry shook the last drops off, and sighed. "Go od thed. You bight as well ged id over wid."

There was a rustle, and then Snape's hands came under Harry's armpits to hoist him to his feet. His robes were scratchy, and still bore the chill of the October morning's mist as he pressed Harry against his chest, and backed them both out of the toilet stall. "Get what over with, Potter?" he asked mildly.

"Shyeah. Lige I believe you ared't godda laugh at be aboudt all this..." Harry tried again to sniff against his blocked-up nose, but made no progress.

Snape walked him over to the bench beside the door, and set him firmly down there. "Of course I am going to laugh at you about this, Potter," he said, fetching a satchel from near the door, and producing a series of bottles, which he set in a row beside Harry's hip. "At this point, even should you miraculously manage to avoid doing a single further idiotic thing for the rest of my lifespan, I doubt I should run dry of material."

"Oh god…"

But no, Snape had no mercy. "You caught and nurtured a common muggle virus instead of going to a mediwitch to have yourself healed; while on pain potions, you got into a drinking contest with a werewolf -- courting profound alcohol poisoning, I shouldn't need to add; you splattered half your lounge, and most of your furniture with blue paint which smells as though it was transfigured from whatever contents of your liquor cabinet you managed not to drink; you are naked, cannot possibly have the first clue what became of your clothes, and you clearly passed out and fell off your toilet at some point last night."

He uncorked the first of the little bottles, and pressed it into Harry's hand. "Tricking you into lowering your house wards, only to find you had not drowned in your own swill, but managed to wedge yourself into your very own bathroom oubliette, I confess I find myself at a loss as to where, precisely, to begin."

"Ha, ha," Harry grumbled, wincing as his feet began to tingle painfully. "I'b so abused."

"Ah yes, that will do for a starting place, I suppose: You sound like an idiot, Potter." Snape prodded at Harry's elbow, and smirked again. "Drink that potion so I can at least pretend we share a language."

Harry did, and Snape had the next bottle in his hand before Harry had even finished gagging at the texture. "It was just a little cold," he gasped to win some time while his ears finished steaming. "And I was kind of lying low anyhow. I didn't know-"

"That you were a wizard, not some helpless muggle?" Snape whirled away, and a moment later, the front door slammed.

Harry cursed, but drank the second potion. "I'm not helpless," he said to himself in the hush that followed. "I'm not."

"Oddly enough, you seem to be the only one who feels the need to prove that over and over again." Snape's voice behind him made Harry jump and yelp.

"I thought you'd gone," he knew he sounded mulish, but couldn't quite help it. Snape was hanging his robe and jacket on the hooks on Harry's bedroom door, feet pale, long and bare, fingers working the buttons of his shirtcuffs.

"You would do," he agreed darkly, and swept his shirt off. "I haven't gone, however, you are not alone, and I have no intention of watching you continue to bumble through this when it's clear you don't know what you're about."

Harry blinked. That sounded like an insult, but… but Snape was taking off his trousers. And he wasn't shouting. And though his eyes were angry, his hands weren't. He wasn't throwing anything. He wasn't hexing anyone. Harry shivered, swallowed down the last of the potions, and rubbed a hand over his scarred tattoo by reflex.

Snape's eyes followed the movement, and he sighed. "Bath, Potter. You look like a wild Pict, and you smell like a goat."

"You said the rest of your life," Harry croaked, and even he wasn't certain what he meant.

Snape merely smirked, and hoisted him to his feet again. "You needn't worry, Potter; we both know you'll do something far more idiotic than this before I shuffle off this mortal coil," he said, and oddly, his voice was comforting as he led Harry down the steps into the steaming water and settled him back against his chest.

And that made it easy to let go. To just float in the steam, let those long, solid fingers rub the paint from his skin, and the ache of fever from his bones. To let the potions' acrid flavours and the smell of citrus soap clear the cobwebs and complications and confusion from his mind.

Snape's hands were simple things. Just fingers, thumbs and palms. Trim nails, stains, and bony knuckles that knew where he hurt, but also where he ached for touch. Snape's hands didn't have to fumble, didn't have to ask permission when they made Harry gasp, or forgiveness when they made Harry whimper. They knew what they were doing to him, they knew with every pinch to Harry's nipples, with every rolling caress to his bollocks, with every stroke along his thighs that left him breathless and adrift in wanting.

Snape's lips were simple things as well. Suckling the sensitive hollows behind Harry's ear, caressing his brow, cheek and jaw with silent kisses, so much simpler than words could ever be. Clever lips… not afraid of the simple things. Not afraid of the hard things. Not afraid to taste Harry's hard pebbled nipples, or to press hot and tight around the erection Harry had before he realized he was getting one. Not afraid to suck Harry's jittery fears deeply, wetly down into a quiet, white vortex of release.

Something broke inside Harry's chest then, something ragged and sharp, that echoed like sobs from the steam-clouded walls. Something far too complicated, far too easy. Something that felt as if dying would hurt less to do.

He clung to the arms that folded around him, shook against the lean, hard chest, and let himself be curled under Snape's chin like a child; held close and warm, one hand smoothing his hair down in slow, gentle strokes. But there were no soft shushings, no hushabye it'll be all right, no there, there, there. No lies.

Harry couldn't recall when he'd been more grateful for silence.

"Please," he hiccupped, when Snape stood, and pulled him out of the water too. "Please don't leave."

"Not today," Snape promised, and summoned towels from the basket beside the bench. "I've not had my breakfast yet, and I daresay you've not had yours, nor yesterday's, or the day before's, either." The brusque tone was just what it took to shake Harry out of his fugue, and if Snape's smirk was a little smug when he handed Harry the towel, Harry figured he could afford to ignore it.

Dobby went overboard, as usual. The amount of food he brought could have fed Snape, Harry, Dudley's favorite Rugger team, a Thestral or two, and a crew of very hungry road menders besides. Harry was more than a little bit dubious about putting eggs, bacon, porridge, beans on toast, sausage, fried potatoes, tomatoes, and mushrooms, custard, tea, scones, and clotted cream into a stomach which had tasted nothing but alcohol and assorted potions for the better part of three days, however he wasn't quite ready to fight Snape over it. And of course, once he began to eat, his body sorted the matter out with a will.

The road menders, at least, would have gone hungry.

Harry would have been embarrassed, only Snape ate just as much as he did, and didn't seem the least bit abashed by his appetite.

Dobby fussed about the cottage while they ate, mending, clearing, setting this or that upright, removing the garishly blue spatters from the rugs and furniture, windows and woodwork as he went. Snape watched the elf work with a ferocious intensity which Harry didn't have to work too hard to sort out. After awhile, the unspoken question simply grew too heavy, and he put down his teacup with a sigh.

"I wanted things… clean, I guess," he said, thinking of Petunia, and how the lounge got a new coat of paint whenever she and Vernon rowed. "It was all such a mess, everything overturned and gone off, and … and I didn't know what else to do, so…" He shrugged. "Guess it made more sense when I was drunk."

Snape nodded soberly. "Indeed. As did your choice of colour, no doubt. Out of curiousity, will you be allowing the elf to paint over it, or do you intend to complete the dousing of your wallspace with that particular cerulean nightmare?"

Harry tilted his head, and peered at the walls. "I dunno. Isn't blue meant to be 'restful?"

"Restful." Snape's head adopted the exact angle of Harry's, and his voice dripped with scorn.

"Yeah, I guess not," Harry grinned. "But it could have been worse, I suppose…" He stopped, startled when Snape's hand caught his, pulled his chaffing fingers away from where they were rubbing at his tattoo.

"Far worse." His dark eyes simmered with anger as he leaned near. "Crimson of that particular hue does not even suit Gryffindor idiots. I'll thank you not to subject me to it again."

"I was thinking of green, actually," Harry lied, but let himself be kissed anyway.

 

~*~

Dazed, breathless, and flushed with lust, Harry still flinched when he felt cool fingers brush his entrance. He didn't want to flinch, didn't think about what had happened, what had almost, not quite, but very very nearly happened, but hadn't, but might have done so, so easily. He flinched, and caught his breath. When Snape made to pull back, Harry cursed himself for it immediately.

"No," he cried, and caught Snape' arm. "It's okay. He didn't. We. I'm okay. I want-"

Snape cut him off with a whelming kiss, rolling over Harry, entangling them both into a knot of bedclothes already musky from the first time he had rubbed them both off that morning. His cock was rigid as a bar of iron against Harry's thigh, and it made him arch up against it with a groan -- eyes open wide, so as to burn every harsh angle of Snape's face, every black, greasy strand of hair into his hammering heart.

"I do not care what he did," Snape's voice was gravel and greed, and blazing heat in Harry's ear. He rocked his pelvis down, pinned Harry's to the bed as he reached his long arm to the nightstand behind them, pulled the drawer free, and dumped it across the bed. Harry heard the jar of lube pop open, and whimpered as Snape kissed his shoulder, and then bit gently at the trailing end of the scar that Friday night had left across his right shoulder. "Do you hear me, Potter? I do not care."

"I-" Harry swallowed a giddy, panicked noise, and bit at Snape's throat to calm himself. "I hear you. God, I hear you!" He arched up again, not trying to still his cry when those fingers returned, wet and slick now, to test him again. "I hear you, I hear y-"

Snape growled, and kissed him silent. A finger slid inward, retreated.

"I can-" Harry gasped, clutching. "You-" Another fierce kiss, another inward press that made his toes curl. "Severumph-" he was silenced again, opened again, stroked to wordless, sloppy volume again.

This time, when the mouth lifted off his, Harry managed not to say anything, biting his lip, bearing eagerly toward Severus' hands, and waiting, waiting, waiting. A twist of smile was his reward, and a blaze of hunger in those black eyes.

"One word, Potter," Severus said, pressing deep, cupping his fingertips just _there,_ so that Harry couldn't draw breath to speak any words at all. "That is all I care to hear from you. One word." His fingers slid, pressed, blasting fire up Harry's spine, and stars across his vision. "Tell me no..." the pressure eased, the fingers withdrew, slowly, teasingly, so that they barely tickled the curl of his arse. "Or else tell me yes."

Yes or no? From Snape? The man who had ridiculed Harry for years over not understanding the nuances of grey? The man who never laid eyes on a line without finding a way to blur it? That couldn't be right.

"What do-" he began.

"One word," Severus broke the kiss to growl. His finger circled again, but did not press in.

Alarmed, Harry rutted his hips toward that tickling, promising touch. "Comeomph!"

"One." A bite to Harry's swollen lips. "Word."

Harry took a breath, tasted lust and tea, spunk and bacon grease on his lover's breath. Licked the thin lips soft over those angry teeth. His lover's teeth.

His.

_It is that simple..._

Harry gave a fierce wriggle, freed both hands, and wound them tight in Severus' hair, pinning his head in place, just where Harry could focus on those blazing black eyes.

"One word," Severus warned, and there was a fathomless, waiting stillness there behind those words. A box closed, a cat inside it, neither dead nor alive. Severus Snape wasn't completely certain what would happen next, Harry realized with a thrill of shock, and for once, he wasn't blustering to hide the fact.

Harry felt the smile begin all the way down in his belly. "One word," he agreed, brushing his thumb across Severus' damp, swollen lips. "More!"

Severus made a sound deep in his throat; a kind of groan, a kind of roar, a fierce benediction snarled through his teeth as they locked onto Harry's throat and clenched hard. Harry held tight, and struggled against the sheets, trying to wind his legs up around Severus' hips, to urge that beautiful, curved cock home...

And someone suddenly pounded on the door.

"FUCK!" It was out of Harry's mouth before he'd even thought the word. Then Severus tore out of Harry's hands and whirled on one knee so fast, he nearly slithered off the bed. Harry grabbed after him with a growl. "Like hell you're opening that door," he hissed. "I don't care who it-"

"I know you're in there, you fucking slag!" Draco Malfoy's voice, shrill with rage, turned Harry's spine to ice, and his tongue to dust.

"Your house wards!" Severus lunged for his wand, and summoned his trousers while Harry struggled for a breath. He hadn't put the wards back up after he'd let Snape in. Neither of them had thought of it. All morning long, the wards had been down. All morning long...

"_Fuck!_" Harry managed a cracked whisper as Malfoy hammered on the door again. Severus flung a pair of sleep pants at Harry's head, with a furious glare.

"You're not fucking blackmailing me, Potter!" The thuds took on a deeper note, as of boots against the thick wood. "You had better keep your bloody mouth shut about your drunken fucking fantasies, or I swear I will RUIN YOU!"

Harry froze, vest in his hands. "Fantasies?" he heard the word slip out of his mouth; an alien shape, a fathomless meaning through the blurring haze of thick, pounding red that obscured his vision. "Fantasies!"

He hit the door at a run, and flung it wide, wands and curses a world away in his fury. Harry's fist caught him mid-shout, pulping lip, and splitting knuckle against the same row of teeth. A moment later, Malfoy's back hit the door, and all of Harry's weight bore down on his throat by way of a forearm lock.

"I told you to get out of here," Harry hissed, wrenching the thin wrist backward until Malfoy had to release his wand, or feel the bones actually break. "I told you to go away," he said, jabbing the wand hard under the fragile jawbone arch as the blond went slowly red for want of air. "Told you to leave me alone. Told you to piss off out of my life. Why can't you ever fucking _listen?_"

"Potter." Snape's voice, just behind him. Harry didn't look back. "Potter, let him breathe."

"Really rather not, sir," Harry gritted, gouging deeper with the wand. "Malfoys are like gnomes, you see? Got to kill them when you catch them, or there's no digging them out. Can't let them get a foot."

"Severus," Malfoy wheezed, eyes round and pleading. "Help me! He's... mad-"

"Mad? I'm bloody furious!"

"Sent a note... Said I had to... leave Hogwarts... twenty-four hours, or... he'd..."

"If I'd sent you a note, Malfoy, it would have blown your hand off when you touched it!" Harry shouted. "You tried to--" the word broke off in his throat, and it was all Harry could do to swallow down the shards. "I told you no! Told you never again, and you-"

"He was drunk!" Malfoy, clearly still trying to make his case to Snape, looked right past Harry's shoulder. "He came on to me at the pub in front of everyone, and he wouldn't-"

"I DIDN'T WANT YOU!" It was all Harry could do to stop himself jabbing that wand all the way through his throat. He could picture it; one good shove, and all that soft flesh would give way. Maybe the wand would spear right through that agile, lying tongue before it went on up, through the palate, crunching through paper-thin sinus bones, until it finally pressed into...

A hand brushed softly over Harry's shoulder, cool fingers tracing the tender new scar as Severus pressed close to Harry's back. "Potter, stop," he murmured, low and calm in Harry's ear. "We have an audience."

Malfoy's eyes flickered, and the shadow of a smirk crossed his bleeding lips. Harry followed the glance, and found a bobble floating in the doorway, watching all with mute, glassy patience. Malfoy's shoulders relaxed, his breath curling easier through his teeth. _You won't dare kill me while the Sorting Hat looks on!_ He might as well have crowed it aloud.

Harry's stomach turned. Because the bastard was right. "Banish it," he snarled, knowing Severus wouldn't, and almost not caring.

"I made the adjustment last weekend, after I found you in your kitchen. They're attuned to all bloodshed now, even in the non-apparative areas," Severus leaned close over Harry's back, long fingers trailing up the length of his arm to close over Harry's wand hand. "We might as well thank Mr. Malfoy properly for suggesting the idea..."

"Thank him!" Harry grudgingly relinquished the wand, and scowled as Severus thumbed the trickling blood off Malfoy's pointed chin before stepping away. "For trying to-"

"Snape, I don't know what Potter told you," the blond began, shoving futilely against Harry's arm over his throat, "but I wasn't-"

"The wind is too cold to have this discussion on the doorstep, Potter," Severus cut him off. "And it's clear that Malfoy is operating under the influence of some mood-altering drug, or else he'd have more sense than to come shouting about blackmail on your doorstep, where anybody might hear. I suggest we retire inside, to discuss this like civilized wizards."

It was on the tip of Harry's tongue to refuse. The words were half-formed in his throat, his fists already winding into the fine linen shirtfront, his bare feet braced to hurl him out and slam the door... but Severus was right. Malfoy wasn't acting like he should. As obnoxious as he'd come to be over the past two years, and as vile and violent as he could be in private, he would never have let anyone _else_ see him acting like a prick unless he was not in his right mind.

Abruptly, Harry recalled two things: The look of malicious glee on Kreacher's face when his lie had sent Harry running into Voldemort's trap... and the sound of Dobby's furious tears on Friday night as he'd mopped Harry's blood and broken dishes off the floor. Then he thought of how the spoiled prat was always demanding special dishes when he ate in the Great Hall.

Harry began to smile. "You _are_ wasted..."

"You wish, Scarhead," Malfoy scoffed, but there was a note of uncertainty in his scorn. "As though I'd touch that Muggle rubbish! You're the one sending hysterical notes to my rooms, and trying to blacken my reputation!"

"What reputation? The one where you're a murderer who got away with it? Is that the reputation you mean?"

"I never murdered anyone!"

"You tried! Katie Bell! Ron!" Harry shoved him into the door again, teeth bared. "How many more would you have gone through if Dumbledore hadn't forced Snape's hand? You're not innocent just because you were incompetent!"

"Oh, and you'd know about incompetence getting people killed, wouldn't you, Potter?" Malfoy showed his teeth in an evil grin. "How's dear Ginevra doing these days?"

"Enough," Severus' sharp command was all that stopped the red haze from dropping over Harry's vision again. His hand came down, warm and solid on Harry's shoulder, more an anchor than a tether; one solid point of balance, into which Harry could lean. He did so, literally as well as figuratively, seeing Malfoy's cold leer as he glanced between Severus and Harry, but not caring about it. Let him say what he wanted to. Harry was tired of it. Harry was tired of _him._

"Our conversation seems to have wandered off-topic," Snape's voice rumbled from behind Harry's ear. "I believe, Mr. Malfoy, that I have something inside which you ought to see."

Malfoy scoffed, and shoved Harry's arm off his throat. "Believe me, I've seen it. I've seen it all."

"I rather doubt that." Severus soothed a hand down Harry's chilled arm in a possessive show that oddly, made Harry's heart race a bit. He hid his shiver, but he knew Severus noticed, by the gentle squeeze on his scarred tattoo... _Never again._

"Still, in the interest of House solidarity, I feel you should see this," he continued. "Before I turn the evidence over to the Aurors, that is..."

The bobble sparkled in the weak sunlight, vigilant, impassive.

Malfoy's throat worked. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and then he frowned, as though confused. "Evidence of what?"

Harry felt Severus' smile against the back of his head, and then the shoulder behind his gave a shrug. "Only a little thing, really; a letter implicating you as an accomplice and facilitator in a failed kidnapping plot..."

"That's impossible," Draco hissed, then caught himself short. "I, that is-"

Harry half turned, startled. "_He_ was DeCastillo's accomplice?" But even as he asked it, the facts were tallying up in his head: a Seeker _would_ set a snitch to trap a Seeker, after all, and Draco had come to Hogwarts that afternoon, despite not being on the game's guest list. "You've done the interrogation already, haven't you? That's where you've been since Friday night!"

From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Malfoy's sudden movement, and grabbed after him. Severus' hold thwarted his movement just enough though that Harry's hand closed on empty air. "Damn it!"

Severus barked a laugh, the sound freezing both younger men. "You think he's going far, do you, Potter? With neither his wand, nor the evidence that will send him to Azkaban?" Malfoy turned, breath steaming in the October air, as though he'd run much farther than three steps out into Harry's untended garden. "Even with his reasoning clouded by scurvygrass, lovage, and sneezewort, Mr. Malfoy is far more Slytherin than to be _that_ careless."

"I don't want him in my house," Harry grumbled as Severus urged him out of the doorway.

"Indulge me," the murmur warmed his ear, and with a final glower, Harry let himself be led inside.

Like a pale, fuming moth, Mafoy followed. "Severus, this is a mistake," he said as he closed the bobble outside. "I never wrote any letter to any Spaniard, and if I had done, you know I would not have been so careless as-"

"I know," Severus replied, leaning easily on the mantel.

Harry, summoning his wand from the bedroom, nearly missed his grab. "You do?"

"Of course," Severus replied. "The letter self-ignited some thirty seconds after DeCastillo was allowed to open it. And, of course, the charms on it prevented the Aurors guarding him at St. Mungo's from seeing its contents."

Malfoy's lips twisted in victory. "Then you've no 'evidence' after all-"

"However," Severus cut him off. "Sixteen years of teaching lazy brats who would rather cheat than do their own work has given me a comprehensive working knowledge of forgery charms. Recreating the letter was hardly an effort worth mentioning."

"Prove it!" Malfoy charged, stopping short as both Harry's and Severus' wands turned on him. "You don't have anything, or you'd have shown it by now! This is all an attempt to incriminate me. Potter's bought you off, and-"

"No," Severus said, though Harry wasn't certain whether that was a reply to Malfoy's accusation, or an order to stop the wordless curse forming in Harry's mind. Pale, stained fingers reached into his robes, the black fabric parting to show an arc of naked collarbone as Severus drew out a thin roll of parchment.

"Don't let him _have_ it," Harry cried as Severus passed the letter to Malfoy.

"I made the one, Potter," came the sneering reply as he beckoned Harry to his side, "I can make two as easily. Any Slytherin knows that."

And of course, a glance at Malfoy's face as he tracked Severus' arm settling over Harry's bare shoulders, his white skin scorched furiously pink across the ridge of his cheekbones heralded the death of pretense. Malfoy didn't even bother to unroll the letter, and though he held it like delicate china, his trembling fingers couldn't have been more tense if he'd gripped it like a snitch. "What do you want?" he said through his teeth.

Severus' smile curled out, smug and vicious in reply. "I want you to remember two things, Mr. Malfoy; That _he,_" a nod to Harry, "was powerful and resourceful enough to defeat the Dark Lord more times than you yourself even laid eyes on him. That it is only due to the fact that he is a noble, Gryffindor idiot that you survive to draw breath before us today, and that if he were one whit the lesser man, he would have left you and me both to rot in Azkaban, as we richly deserved."

Malfoy opened his mouth, but Severus cut him off, the rumble of his growl making something in Harry's belly purr in response. "And the second: Remember that I myself am largely unaffected by Gryffindorish notions of honour and fair play. That I myself taught you everything you know about duplicity and manipulation, and that I have known most of your family secrets since before you were born." And oh, how Harry enjoyed the way Malfoy's angry flush spread down his throat while his eyes followed the restless circles Severus' thumb was tracing over Harry's tattoo. "I want you to remember that I am a jealously possessive man, and a cruel bastard of unrepentantly vicious temperament, of whom it is a _very bad idea_ to make an enemy."

Malfoy's jaw worked for a moment, clearly struggling to keep back the fury building in every line of his face and frame. But then, after a final, hateful glance at Harry, he managed to nod. "Agreed," he said, and held out the letter in two fingers. "Twenty-four hours, I believe you said?"

_Just like that?_ Harry thought, feeling the pleasure in his belly curdle. _You spend two years fucking me over, and now you're meant to leave me alone just because HE warns you off?_

Harry curled a fist tight around his wand. "I didn't promise you a single fucking second-"

"Twenty-four hours," Severus said over him, reaching out to take the letter back.

Malfoy smirked, grey eyes glinting. Harry could feel the blood burning in his face, but the restless back-and-forth brush of Severus' thumb over his shoulder held him back, kept his wand pointed at the floor, kept the curses balled up behind his teeth.

It wasn't over. Not like this. It _couldn't_ be over like this...

"Of course," Severus mused as Malfoy half-turned and reached for the door handle, "I _have_ been known to lie..."

Malfoy hadn't even time to squeak before the transfiguration hit him. His tall, lean form twisted in on itself, and dwindled with a sudden raveling sound. Two seconds later, a white ferret bounced, bristling with fury on Harry's entry carpet. For a moment, all Harry could do was stare at the creature, which seemed equally flabbergasted itself. Then a shout of startled laughter burst from his throat.

"You planned this," he cried, turning to punch Severus' ribs as the ferret chattered and fled beneath the drinks cabinet. "You utter shite, you planned this whole thing!"

"Hooligan," Severus gave Harry a shove, and rubbed at his side. But he still managed to look smug as he transfigured a cage from Harry's coalscuttle. "Malfoy has less imagination than even you. It was no impressive feat to anticipate what he would do once I was certain of his guilt."

"So you'd have done none of this then, if he hadn't showed up in DeCastillo's memories?" Harry scoffed, summoning the ferret with a gleeful wand-swish. He might have bounced the creature off the furniture once or twice in getting it into the cage but, well, it _was_ rather thrashing about a bit. "Not that I really care whether he was really guilty or not..."

A brush to his scarred arm brought Harry's face up to find Severus staring at him with hot and sober eyes. "Malfoy was guilty," he said, and reached to trace a tender line of scar that ran down Harry's face from cheek to chin, so carefully healed that though it was still sore, not even Harry could easily see it in his mirror. "He was. Have no doubt of that."

Harry swallowed, unsure whether he wanted more to lean into the touch, or away. "I guess the Aurors have your memories pensieved already then," he said with a frown and a handwave at the ferret, frantically gnawing at its cage. "Why did you need to let him in here at all?"

Severus gave a snort, and tucked the letter back into his robes. "The evidence is far more compelling now that Malfoy has actually handled the letter. Even better that he had blood on his hands when he did."

"Shacklebolt would've turned handsprings just to have _any_ physical evidence, and you know it," Harry laughed. "I think you just wanted to turn Malfoy into a ferret for your own twisted pleasure. All this bollocks about compelling evidence was just a good excuse-" Harry grunted, pleased and startled when Severus caught his shoulders and shoved him back against the fieldstone wall for a deep and plundering kiss.

"Inattention to details," Severus grumbled between kisses, "is exactly why you were always so abysmal in potions..." He trailed off in a groan when Harry bit the swell of his chest.

"Better at transfigurations though," Harry panted, shoving Severus' robes aside to reach his peaked nipple and gently bite. "F'rinstance. I know Malfoy'll only stay like that for a week, tops, then the spell will revert again." He grinned to feel long fingers card deeply into his hair and press him close.

"It will... Merlin, yes, just there... it will last long enough to feed your pet hippogriffs well." Severus hissed when Harry nipped him, but didn't really seem chastened. "No? Well, I suppose we could always use him as a test subject for fine tuning the wards... Ah! Do that again. Harder!"

Harry did. Then he raised his head to catch his breath. "I think adding an 'utter arsehole' barrier to the wards might be a bit tricky..." He nuzzled Severus' tented trouser placket to resist the temptation to ponder aloud how the man would ever get to work if they did.

"Brat," Severus growled as though he'd guessed the thought, then he rutted his hips while Harry worked down his trouser buttons. "You're actually going to talk me out of tormenting Mr. Malfoy, aren't you?"

Glancing over at the scrabbling ferret, Harry shrugged. "It's harder to want to see him suffer now that he's actually as cute as he always thought he was, I guess." The ferret responded to Harry's observation with an enraged hiss, and Harry fanned his hand in front of his nose at the animal's sudden, pungent musk. "Then again, if we recast the spell regularly, we could use him to test the wards against animagi..." He gasped, and lost his train of thought as Severus' tongue slithered into his ear.

"See, Potter?" Severus' fingers ticked gooseflesh along the back of Harry's neck. "You can be taught..."

"Ohh, fuck yes, when you teach things like that..." Harry gasped. "So what happens when we're done with the testing then? We just let him go?"

"No." Harry looked up, startled. Severus' fierce scowl matched his sharp tone perfectly.

Swallowing strangely giddy nerves, Harry let himself be pulled back up to his feet. His every nerve was alive and prickling with want, fear, relief, hunger, trepidation, and confusion. This was important. This was not about Malfoy. Not really. It couldn't be.

Harry forced himself to back away; to lift his hands from Severus' skin; to ask... but not the question he really wanted answered. "No?" He took a step back, thinking the answer just might need more space, or perhaps that he would need more air to take it in. "What, then?"

"The Wizengamot will likely try him in absentia soon after I hand over the letter and finish my pensieve report, when it becomes clear he has fled England," Severus replied, closing the distance between them, but not reaching out to gather Harry in. "I've no doubt that by the time I have satisfied my own baser instincts, Shacklebolt will have a team more than ready to take custody of Draco Malfoy, in whatever form or condition he might come to them."

Heart thudding in his chest, Harry took another step back, Severus' warm, musky scent coiling thickly around his throat, his belly, and his bollocks. He could ask this. He could. "Why?"

Severus stepped forward again, loomed close and hot in the chilly room, but still, he did not touch. "Malfoy does not deserve freedom," he said after a long and searching silence. "Not as a man, not as an animal. Not with the wealth of opportunities and second chances he has squandered with neither thought nor remorse," Harry watched the dark gaze trace down his face again, and shivered. "Not with all he has tried to destroy."

He stepped back once more, brought his shoulders up firm and cold against his bedroom door, though the retreat took more courage than facing Voldemort ever had. He closed his eyes, and prayed to every nameless God that he hadn't misunderstood the whole thing. Not again... Never-

"Why?" Harry heard his voice again, harsh and sudden in the waiting silence. His prick was hard and sore against the seam of his sleep pants, and his spine prickled with nervous sweat as he waited forever. Then he heard the rustle of Severus' robes, the soft 'whump' as they fell to the floor.

"Perhaps..." Harry twitched as Severus' breath stirred his fringe. "Perhaps I have come to believe there is something to be said for people getting what they deserve."

A sound that was absolutely not a sob hitched in Harry's throat at that. Laughter. It had to be laughter, because he was smiling, wasn't he? And his eyes were only closed because they were sore and prickling, not because he was terrified to open them and see what might be lurking in Severus'... in Snape's... in Severus' gaze.

He was a Gryffindor. He was brave enough to stand up to Voldemort, Lestrange, Umbridge, a basilisk, both Malfoys, and Scrimgeour. He could do this. He could. Snape would let him know if he'd fucked it up. Snape always let him know.

Severus wouldn't let him fall.

Harry curled both hands over his aching stomach, took a deep breath. "What do I deserve, then?"

Long hair tickled along his bicep, then his shoulder, and a moment later, Harry felt the gentle brush of lips just where he'd paid to have ink and regret drilled into his skin. The breath escaped him as a hand closed firmly around his elbow, and damn it, this time it couldn't be anything else but a whimper.

"One word, Potter," Severus murmured the words against the sweaty hair at Harry's temple. Harry twitched a moan as a naked chest bore down against his own. "_Extrudius!_"

His arm seized up in a sudden, burning cramp. Harry hissed through his teeth, and would have folded to the floor, had Severus' weight not anchored him. The pain centered down to an acid sting where the tattoo itself lay. Harry, certain it hadn't hurt quite this badly when he'd had the thing done, grabbed Severus' other arm and clung for all he was worth. Then the burn became a tingle, and a wet feeling, as of sweat or blood dewed on his skin.

Harry blinked his eyes clear, and craned his head to look. The ink was gleaming against his reddened skin; black and bloody scarlet, and just beginning to drip the words _Never Again._ toward his elbow.

And then Severus' hand slid upward and wiped the whole, ugly souvenir away. Leaning back only enough to bring his stained hand between them, Severus turned it palm up and raised an expectant eyebrow. And there lay Harry's broken heart, bruised and muddled, a gory smudge right in his hand.

_niagA reveN._

Harry traced a finger along the outline, feeling the way his breath synchronized with the chest pressed against his, the way his cock, undeterred by the brief pain, had found its way into the cradle of Severus' hip, the way the knot in his stomach began to unravel.

"Just like that?" Harry managed to ask after a moment.

"Must it be more complicated?" Something in Severus' voice caught his attention, and Harry looked up to search that craggy, forbidding, impossible face for a trace of fear. It was there, curled along with uncertainty, and...yes, that had to be hope. It just had to be.

Harry swallowed, traced the heart-shaped stain once again. "You said the simple things were the hardest of all;" he offered an out. It was only fair.

The ravens-wing brows quirked, and amusement veiled the flicker of vulnerability. "I have never been easy in my life, Potter," Severus replied, shifting his balance to press his hip a bit harder, "and I don't intend to begin now. And quite frankly, you're about as simple as they come." Harry couldn't help snickering at that, but the joking tone faded as Severus went on. "I daresay it won't kill either of us to admit to things being what they are, but I'm not about to leave it to you to bollix up all on your own."

Harry felt the goofy smile fighting its way out, like the sting in his eyes, and the urge to roll his hips against his lover's. He looked down again, read the smudged remnants like the future in that creased, stained palm.

"Never again..." he recited, then he curled Severus' hand closed, leaned up on his toes, and pressed a kiss to his lips. "Yes."

One word.

It wasn't all that Harry wanted. It wouldn't undo the scars on his skin, or his soul. It wouldn't stop them fighting, it wouldn't stop them fearing. He knew that. It was only one word. It wasn't even close to everything that either of them needed.

But it was enough to be going on with, and that was more than Harry'd had in a long, long time. More, he suspected, than Severus'd had for most of his life. In the strong circle of their arms, in the cadence of their matched breaths, in the familiar smell of their skins pressed tight, it was a wealth indeed.

"Yes," he breathed again as Severus' hair curtained down around his face, shutting out the rest of the world. "Yes. More...."

 

~* The End *~


End file.
